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Your Most Trusted Brand Of Ink


tonybelding

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The question comes down to affordability. Domestically made inks are *usually* -- or should be -- cheaper than imported inks.

 

 

I'll "raise" you an exception: not in Australia — which is admitted not the centre of "the hobby" in which most fountain pen users or source of spending resides, as it most likely is somewhere is Asia. Robert Oster, Blackstone and Standard Bindery inks (for example) are more expensive for me to get than, say, Waterman inks in a local stationery store, and probably more expensive to order directly from the manufacturer (or its local distributor) online than ordering from an overseas retailer.

 

I agree what you wrote is probably valid and "correct" in China, Japan and Europe where (collectively) most fountain pen users reside. PenBBS inks are cheap in China but almost prohibitively expensive to acquire these days outside; as is the case of Sailor pigment inks (such as seiboku) in Japan and Rohrer & Klingner inks in Germany.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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It's probably a naive way to think about it, but the inks I trust the most are the ones made (or at least marketed) by fountain pen manufacturers. These include: Pelikan, Montblanc, Waterman, Parker, Aurora, Sailor and Pilot. While I have had great experiences with other inks, such as Private Reserve and Robert Oster, my guess is that pen manufacturers will not want to sell inks that are not healthy for their pens. If I had to pick one, I would probably go with Pelikan as I believe they have been in the ink business the longest.

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azbobcat, we are both is the US of A. What inks are made here and are they more affordable than imports? The few Monteverde cartridges I have were made in Austria. Private Reserve inks used to be made in the USA but I think some of their cartridges were packaged in Slovenia and a recent bottle of their ink had a Made in India sticker on it. All of these cost more than inks from China or India or even the Koh-I-Noor inks from Europe. Transportation costs would be higher for inks from overseas, but the cost of making the ink may be much lower there. And in the case of Chinese inks the transportation costs are essentially subsidized by the US government. So I would want to modify your statement to include the phrase "all other things being equal", then add that they are not!-)

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Diamine for saturated color and variety.
waterman for bog standard vintage type. Universal never fail.

"how do I know what I think until I write it down?"

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Hi Everyone,

 

Might lean towards the mundane, but never have had a problem with Waterman inks - and I own and have used all the colors. Always flawless performers.

 

Sean :)

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/

 

"Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven." - MT. 10:32

"Any society that will give up liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both." - Ben Franklin

Thank you Our Lady of Prompt Succor & St. Jude.

 

 

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Waterman...may not be the most saturated...but the inks are consistently well balanced and do not cause issues. I use Waterman Ink to test nibs/feeds and a Pens Performance.

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It's probably a naive way to think about it, but the inks I trust the most are the ones made (or at least marketed) by fountain pen manufacturers. These include: Pelikan, Montblanc, Waterman, Parker, Aurora, Sailor and Pilot. While I have had great experiences with other inks, such as Private Reserve and Robert Oster, my guess is that pen manufacturers will not want to sell inks that are not healthy for their pens. If I had to pick one, I would probably go with Pelikan as I believe they have been in the ink business the longest.

That's not a bad standard, my complaints with pen-making inks are that MB was often putting out shoddy ink product until the last decade (certainly not the case now) and I could never get Lamy ink to work in my Lamy pens (Canadians enjoy high irony...)

 

The non-pen companies are good as well.

 

Actually I don't believe there is much diff for 95% of the inks, there are certainly signature inks for each brand, you can find them praised on here often.

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Pilot Iroshizuku!

 

Annnnnd Diamine as a close second. These two brands consistently give me quality inks.

Sheen junkie, flex nib enthusiast, and all-around lover of fountain pens...

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Here let me narrow down my favorites:

 

1. Eagle Ink (from powder)

2. Montblanc

3. Pilot

4. Sailors

5. Noodlers

6. Montverde

7. Herbin

8. Diamine

9. Lamy

10. Parker Penmann

11. R&K

12. Waterman

Edited by SamCapote

With the new FPN rules, now I REALLY don't know what to put in my signature.

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There are other special cases. Mixing Noodler's Baystate Blue with any other ink is a notoriously bad idea. It has a different chemistry and is not compatible with anything else. I've also tried mixing pigment-based inks with dye-based inks, which resulted in quite a mess as all the pigments quickly came out of suspension.

 

The the safe way to mix inks is to mix a small sample first, then wait a while and see if it turns to goo. If not, it'll probably be fine. There are a lot of people who do this. I've done it, but ink mixing never held my interest for very long. There's so many inks already on the market, we live in the golden age of ink!

 

 

Yes absolutely to both of these. A number of years ago someone started a thread where Noodler's Bay State Blue got mixed with Noodler's Black and put into a pen without seeing how the inks would react. And the results weren't pretty.... I really cringed when I saw some of the photos the person put up. Noodler's has even said to ONLY mix the Bay State series inks with *themselves* because their chemistry is so different -- even from other Noodler's lines.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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Up until reasonably recently, I mixed inkjet printer inks together, and used that to reload my Parker Vector (and Pilot Varsities). I'm going to finish up the inks I have, then not bother picking up any more. BTW - don't bother with the "Photo" inks. They're terrible for fountain pens, unless you just love washed out pastels.

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The the safe way to mix inks is to mix a small sample first, then wait a while and see if it turns to goo.

 

 

The even safer way is to use fountain pen inks, that are expressly marketed as mixable, for one's experimentation. Platinum Pen has such a product line (in different bottle sizes, too!), as does Blackstone Ink; and I'm sure they aren't the only ones on the market. The possibilities are unlimited, even if one is operationally constrained by sticking to a single product line for each blended ink of his/her own creation.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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  • 4 weeks later...

"Trust" is different than "like", which in turn is different from "enjoy".

 

My most "trusted" ink brand is Waterman.

But I "like" and "enjoy" Herbin more.

 

Waterman is more trusted because Herbin inks tend to be picky on the pen... you have to match pen and ink. Waterman inks work everywhere.

Also, Herbin's colours are more attractive, but they change from pen to pen and from paper to paper. Waterman colours are less interesting, but they are consistent.

 

On the other hand, Herbin inks are the easiest to clean by far, and that is a big + in the "trust" factor.

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I had to think...But it would be either Callifolio or Rohrer and Klingner. Both make good, reliable inks. The former is good for vintage pens, but the palette is a bit limited. The latter has some of the brighter, more saturated colors.

Proud resident of the least visited state in the nation!

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If I had to build my whole collection from just one brand?

 

Diamine

 

It's incredibly affordable where I live and I could find any colour I wanted easily. There's a range of saturations and wetnesses to work with any pen and an iron gall if I needed water resistance. Location is everything of course; if I lived near Japan I'm sure I'd choose Sailor for the same reasons.

 

If I was rebuilding from scratch but could branch out to other brands later, then I'd definitely start with:

 

KWZ

 

I love the flow of their inks and am one of the lucky folks who really likes the smell. I try not to double up on similar colours or I'd have a full herd of their inks by now.

 

If I had to pick just one bottled ink:

 

Robert Oster Blue Sea

 

It's just my perfect blue. It has lovely shading, a hint of sheen, nice lubrication and works well in every pen I've put it in. Importantly it also looks quite different in different pens, which would change things up a bit. It's a bit of a pain to clean out (as all those saturated, pthalo looking blues tend to be) but as my only ink it wouldn't matter.

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