Old Private Blackest Plum

[Miz Black Crow]

So this is a little bit of a tease, for which I apologize. I've been off the radar for several months now, but I wanted to resurface and share this little mix I built one day back in March. I'm hesitant to post this in "recipes" due to not actually having a formula to share, but I'm so certain that you'll like this mix that I'm going to post it here anyway.

 

What we have is a mixture of Private Reserve Plum and Noodler's Ink Old Manhattan Blackest Black, to make Old Private Blackest Plum, because my naming system is AMAZING and COMPLICATED and TOTALLY ORIGINAL.

 

Anyway. The way my journal describes the birth of this ink, it was mixed in the barrel of a TWSBI Diamond 580. I described it as "one near-fill of Private Reserve Plum, plus 8-10 drops of Old Manhattan Blackest Black.")

 

And now for the money shot.....

 

 

That's a TWSBI Medium nib, if you're wondering, and the journal is a Markings by CR Gibson journal. (They're $10, and I think they're fantastic journals, but that's just my opinion). I can't seem to find any samples of this ink on other papers, otherwise I'd drop them in the post. But you can see for yourself that the shading is pretty extraordinary, courtesy of the Plum, with enough black to give it some gravitas and heft. I'm very proud of this mixture, especially since I believe it was a first attempt.

 

I don't recall if I did any waterproofness tests, given the nature of Old Manhattan. (Plum is very un-waterproof). Sorry I don't have data available for that.

 

But I hope this post gives you some inspiration to go out and make the purple-black that works for YOU. I know these two inks in particular play well with each other, and didn't leave any sludge or precipitate in my pen even after being away from writing for a few months.

 

As SBRE Brown would say, I hope this was useful!

Edited December 21, 2015 by Miz Black Crow

[migo984]

What a great colour! I love it and wish Old Manhattan was more readily available over here. I have very little left.

[Miz Black Crow]

migo, I suspect you could very well do this with any of the Noodler's blacks -- Black, Heart of Darkness, etc. (Maybe even Polar Black?) This post is more a demonstration of what CAN be done, not what HAS to be done. Try it with plain ol' Black and take a photo!

[UDog]

Gorgeous color. Now I have to buy PR Plum.

[amberleadavis]

That's much prettier than Plum and I suspect it would compare favorable to the new Pelikan Amethyst or MB Lavender.

[etaylor33]

Might try this with Imerial Purple and a Noodlers black sample I have. I love Diamine's Imperial Purple but would be interesting to darken it up some.

[Miz Black Crow]

That's much prettier than Plum and I suspect it would compare favorable to the new Pelikan Amethyst or MB Lavender.

Excuse me while I die of blushing!!!

 

I have a bottle of Plum somewhere in the sky right now, so as soon as it comes in I'll do a real recipe with photos and tests.

 

That compliment made my day :-)

[Miz Black Crow]

My bottle of PR Plum came in, and I finally had the chance to re-mix the ink!! While this may be close to the old sample, it doesn't match perfectly, but it's amazing. The more black you add, the more purple the ink becomes, which is really interesting; with less black, the ink is much redder.

 

The magic recipe seems to be Private Reserve Plum 1mL : 8 drops Noodler's Old Manhattan Blackest Black. You can see a color comparison between the 3 inks below. Apologies for the lack of scans; photos were shot with my phone, because I'm classy like that.

 

A NOTE ON "DROPS" -- The drops I used were NOT from an eyedropper. I use medical syringes for ink moving/mixing, still sharp, because I'm a rebel. So the "drops" were from a VanishPoint syringe (NOT a VanishingPoint FP!). 25 drops worked out to about 0.35mL, but I wasn't able to measure the total volume placed into the mix, so it's probably somewhere around 0.5-0.6mL OMBB to 5mL Plum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watery Soak Test! The sample was compared to PR Plum and Old Manhattan on a smaller piece of Rhodia paper....

 

 

After 5 Minutes of Soaking:

 

 

As we can see, PR Plum is not the most water-resistant ink on the planet. What stays behind when Old Private's gets soaked is only the OMBB component. The upside to that is that OMBB isn't just bulletproof, it's Eternal, which also implies some lightfastness, so what gets written should be damn legible for a good long while. An hour-long soak is currently underway; further bulletins as events warrant.

 

One thing I SHOULD say about this ink is that it feathers a little bit on cheaper paper. It behaves just like royalty on Leuchtturm and Rhodia, though, which makes me extremely happy.

 

And good gods that shaaaaading.... :yikes:

 

ETA: After an hour of soaking, the test remains fundamentally unchanged, which makes sense. The Plum is completely gone; the Old Private and the OMBB remain as they were, so I'm not going to bother with a re-photo.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Miz Black Crow

[amberleadavis]

Thank you!