Inks Where You Must Have Had A Bad Bottle.

[Flaxmoore]

Every now and again, someone new to the inky madness asks for a good, solid black ink that works in basically everything. A common one that keeps coming up is J Herbin Perle Noire- black, smooth writing, agrees with basically every pen in the deck.

 

This was opposite to my experience. Mine was grayish, painfully dry even in my Lamy gusher, and clogged up easily in my Nemosine Singularity. I'm not writing off Herbin by any stretch- I'm joyfully running through a bottle of Emerald of Chivor, and use a gold-less formula (second blend, I think) of Rouge Hematite for markup.

 

What's your "Man, my bottle was messed up." experience?

[eharriett]

Hadn't had a bad bottle out of the box, yet. However, I just posted a few weeks ago about a bottle of Private Reserve Vampire Red which turned to a rather nice green. Not entirely sure what happened there. Although when I opened it, there was a hiss. So I dumped the contents. I had been filling from it fairly recently, too, just one day, all of a sudden, it was green. Not on top. The whole color changed!

[ParkerDuofold]

Hi all,

 

Sheaffer Red. Not very red... more of a red-orange... and dryer than dust. Been wary of trying a second bottle... ... I hate to dump ink down the drain.

 

 

PR Blue Suede Shoes... Never had any blue to it... always looked like a straight green.

 

I think these are my only tales of woe with ink. If you do not count shifts in color due to manufacturers having to change dyes or getting alternates... I'm thinking Poussiere de Lune and Australian Roses, (which were both flea-bay purchases).

 

So far, it seems the red-toned inks are the troublemakers.

 

 

- Anthony

Edited July 19, 2017 by ParkerDuofold

[Bill Wood]

Noodlers Nightshade. I loved my original bottle so much about a year ago. Got the latest. It's some kind of Walnut / reddish -- something. The difference was very disappointing. Wrote Luxury brands and they offered an exchange -- I could take them up on it, but I'll just get a bottle of Nightshade that I don't use. The original Nighshade was very close to the DA Ebony.

[clazbill]

My sample of Noodler's El Lawrence was not the same thing the bottles I eventually purchased. To be fair, the sample sat for a good couple of months before I opened it. And the bottles I bought were purchased a good year later, after El Lawrence went through a period of being totally unavailable. Who knows if the difference was due to a slight re-formulation/difference in batches or if the sample had gone 'off' somehow. Works out though - I like the color in the bottles I have.

[KellyMcJ]

My sample of Noodler's Navy was NOT the same color that was in the bottle that I ordered right after. Same ballpark, maybe, but not the same base. Noodler's is known for this though.

 

There was the Sheaffer Skrip Blue Black that was greener than usual and I found stuff floating in it after a week. I haven't had issues with my replacement bottle and it's definitely bluer.

[fabri00]

Noodler's prime of the commons: it should be blue black, but mine is blue Grey.

[Tas]

Hmm. Four off the top of my head . . . three have been Noodlers - I'm still a fan though

54th Massachusetts - clogged in everything I put it in even when using Sandy 1's photo flo mix recipe.
Blue Upon The Plains of Abraham - clogged in everything I put it in AND its own bottle.

La Colour Royale - Just blue.

Pelikan 4001 Blue Black - grey and characterless, not the iconic ink so many FPN members rave about.

 

[carlos.q]

Pelikan 4001 Blue Black - grey and characterless, not the iconic ink so many FPN members rave about.

 

This happened to me a couple of years back when I bought an old bottle from a store that was closing. So I finally had to send for 2 bottles from across the pond. Now I am one of those doing the raving.

[migo984]

5 bottles come to mind:

 

Noodler's 54th Mass - faded in the bottle from rich blue to pale washed out blue-grey, in a space of 6 months.

 

Diamine Sargasso - 3 bottles went funky at different times. Never had that happen with other makes.

 

Diamine Passion Red - colour looked OK online, in the bottle it was a watery pale mess. Bad ink coupled with the vagaries and unreliability of online colour rendition.

 

Diamine Golden Brown & Herbin Vert Olive - so much promise but in reality just awful, dry nondescript coloured water

 

Noodler's Burgundy - used 3 or 4 times without any issues but thereafter it feathered like crazy and would bleed-through every paper I used, including 52 & 68gsm Tomoegawa, Maruman, Elias and Graphilo.

 

There have been other 'episodes' but these are the most memorablel :-)

[ErrantSmudge]

I got a bottle of Noodler's Ottoman Azure that was a dark teal rather than azure blue. I kept it because I liked the dark teal color but it definitely was not what I wanted.

[kestrel]

PR Black Cherry that was color of milk chocolate.

Noodler's North African Violet that was badly washed out.

[tinta]

Last Fall I bought a bottle of Caran d'Ache Chromatics Ultra Violet from a renowned source in Europe. A very expensive ink in any currency with an attractive bottle.

 

I read member Visvamitra's fine review of this ink, which gave me the impetus to order it. This bottle would have been my third violet/purple, along with R&K Scabiosa & J Herbin Poussiere de Lune.

 

A wet Sailor 1911 Standard with a 1.1 mm. CI should have brought out this ink's shading qualities. In the converter the Cd'A Ultra Violet looked a deep dusty purple but on my good APICA paper the ink showed up incredibly light, as if I was writing with rinse water, not ink.

As if most of the colour was gone.

At first I thought this was some sort of special effect. Maybe that "chromatic" bit on the label? Perhaps it would darken with time, like many a ferrogallic ink?

 

But no,... my wide wet lines could hardly be seen. I changed to other pens (mostly wet), used a variety of papers (RhodiaVelin, OCM Cotton, Life, Staples sugar cane bagasse). The same pale, watery results were achieved every single time.

In frustration , I poured the bottle's contents onto an empty patch in my back yard & flung the bottle into the blue recycle bin. Until I can get Cd'A Chromatics as samples, from a local source, I will not try any more of their expensive bottled inks.

Edited July 20, 2017 by tinta

[Witsius]

Hmm. Four off the top of my head . . . three have been Noodlers - I'm still a fan though

54th Massachusetts - clogged in everything I put it in even when using Sandy 1's photo flo mix recipe.

Blue Upon The Plains of Abraham - clogged in everything I put it in AND its own bottle.

La Colour Royale - Just blue.

 

Pelikan 4001 Blue Black - grey and characterless, not the iconic ink so many FPN members rave about.

 

 

 

 

I've had the same experience with 54th Mass. It clogged easily, and mine wasn't even the dark blue/black it was supposed to be. It was more of a teal. Your lukcy that your La Colour Royale was blue. Mine was a bright purple.

A major dissapointer for me is Noodler's black. I've bought a couple of bottles over the past couple of years, and each time it's a dark grey, hardly what I would call black. In fact, my current bottle looks almost like pencil on certain papers.

Akkerman #5 Shocking Blue. Really poorly behaved ink. Nib dry out is bad, and it causes start up issues. It's also a bit of a pain to really clean out of a pen.

Edited July 21, 2017 by Witsius

[Budzynski]

I've gotten a bad bottle of J Herbin Perle Noire. The ink was way too wet and basically it was dripping from every pen I would put it in. I got rid of the bottle and bought another one later on, this time the ink is perfect, wet but not too much and it's a perfect black.

[Chrissy]

I received one of those tiny Sheaffer bottles of Blue-Black ink with my Legacy pen. It took me a heck of effort to even unscrew it, but when I eventually managed to swab it, I found it's like water that I've dipped a pen into.

 

I've kept it so far and left the cap off, while it's on my sunny window sill, but I foresee throwing the ink away and keeping the cute little bottle.

[LostInColor]

Yup, same as @Tas and @Carlos.q.

 

Pelikan 4001 Blue Black - grey and characterless.

[Alexandra]

Noodler's North African Violet that looked more like J. Herbin Violette Pensee.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Every now and again, someone new to the inky madness asks for a good, solid black ink that works in basically everything. A common one that keeps coming up is J Herbin Perle Noire- black, smooth writing, agrees with basically every pen in the deck.

 

This was opposite to my experience. Mine was grayish, painfully dry even in my Lamy gusher, and clogged up easily in my Nemosine Singularity. I'm not writing off Herbin by any stretch- I'm joyfully running through a bottle of Emerald of Chivor, and use a gold-less formula (second blend, I think) of Rouge Hematite for markup.

 

What's your "Man, my bottle was messed up." experience?

A bottle of Everflo True Blue that developed dusty-looking filaments floating, as though someone had sprinkled flat gray confectioner's jimmies all over the surface.

 

Two bottles of J Herbin Vert Empire that turned to a solid mass of deep-toned gelatin.

 

One bottle of J H Vert Olive with 'goo strands' that clung to the nib I had just dipped into it.

 

I'm sure there must be more...

[Stitchpunk]

I just threw out a bottle of Diamine Delamare Green that leaked in Every. Single. Pen I put it into. Colour was nice, but the big blots of ink, not so much. I'm glad it wasn't an expensive ink!