What Is Your Favorite Ink?

[Bookman]

This morning my favorite was Waterman Serenity Blue. This evening it has been Graf von Faber-Castell Cobalt Blue. Sometimes it is Platinum Blue-Black, sometimes Sailor Jentle Blue, sometimes Montegrappa Dark Blue.

[Niskayuna55]

My favorite ink is Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire................. I also like the Diamine blue inks .

[Eclipse157]

I got to try P.E. Sapphire just yesterday, and yes it's a nice ink, but it kinda bummed me out how a lot of its purple is lost when it dries

[corniche]

This morning my favorite was Waterman Serenity Blue. This evening it has been Graf von Faber-Castell Cobalt Blue. Sometimes it is Platinum Blue-Black, sometimes Sailor Jentle Blue, sometimes Montegrappa Dark Blue.

Seems to always be blue, though, doesn't it?

 

Sean

[N1003U]

I really like Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown, as well as that perfect red that I have not yet discovered.

[thudthwacker]

A long-time friend and colleague, when asking someone their favorite movie, specifies that he means the movie they watch most often. Not the one they feel has the most artistic merit, but the one they most often want to see.

 

Using that method, I think I can get my favorite list down to three. Today, at least.

 

The inks I tend to want in a pen and miss when I don't have them handy are:

 

Platinum Classic Citrus Black

Waterman Inspired Blue

Diamine Aurora Borealis

 

That last is my newest favorite; I love the color, the behavior, the sheen, and the moderate water resistance. After seeing reviews, I hopped over the "sample" phase and picked up a 30ml bottle. I can see that an 80ml bottle is in my relatively near future.

 

And, not even a month later, I find that the ink I'm using the most is De Atramentis Pigeon Blue. I love the slate-blue color, the shading, and the matte finish.

[crosshatch]

This doesn't qualify for the ink review forum, but this is my favorite red, so I'll put this here.

 

https://youtu.be/UZ41_33cquY

[Visua]

a boring choice to be sure, but after a long wait I finally received the 100th Anniversary Aurora Black, and its my current favourite

[torstar]

a boring choice to be sure, but after a long wait I finally received the 100th Anniversary Aurora Black, and its my current favourite

not boring to many of us on here

[Mercian]

For general use, I like Rohrer & Klingner’s iron-gall blue-black Salix, and also their i-g dusky-purple Scabiosa. Both are fairly low in iron content (when compared to official Registrars’ ink), so they retain much of their initial colour after curing on the paper instead of turning fully to black.

 

Neither is very lightfast, and don’t let them dry out in your pen, but their tight lines, lack of feathering or bleedthrough, and their glorious shading all please me greatly

 

For specific purposes (& some specific pens) I have other ‘favourite’ inks, but the irreproducible ‘rippling’ on-page ‘look’ that one gets from these iron-gall inks means that those two are my most-used inks.

[Bookman]

Seems to always be blue, though, doesn't it?

 

Sean

 

Always. Somehow I feel that all my favorite inks being blue should have simplified ink purchases over the years or saved me money. I don't think it's done either. I've got the complicated, expensive ink-purchasin' blues.

[N1003U]

This doesn't qualify for the ink review forum, but this is my favorite red, so I'll put this here.

 

https://youtu.be/UZ41_33cquY

That is a very nice-looking red.

[ENewton]

For general use, I like Rohrer & Klingner’s iron-gall blue-black Salix, and also their i-g dusky-purple Scabiosa. Both are fairly low in iron content (when compared to official Registrars’ ink), so they retain much of their initial colour after curing on the paper instead of turning fully to black.

 

Neither is very lightfast, and don’t let them dry out in your pen, but their tight lines, lack of feathering or bleedthrough, and their glorious shading all please me greatly

 

For specific purposes (& some specific pens) I have other ‘favourite’ inks, but the irreproducible ‘rippling’ on-page ‘look’ that one gets from these iron-gall inks means that those two are my most-used inks.

 

 

In what pens do you use Salix and Scabiosa? I love Scabiosa, but I don't think most of my pens do it justice.

[MusterMark]

Diamine Twilight. It was my favorite when I first got into writing with fountain pens. Forgot about it for a long time and put it into a pen recently again. it's a gorgeous blue!

[NumberSix]

Platinum Carbon Black

Sailor souboku

Sailor seiboku

Platinum Classic Ink Khaki Black

Diamine Jalur Gemilang

 

I have not tried the Carbon Black. But I have a bottle of Platinum Dye Black that I like very much. It's nice and dark, behaves well even on cheap paper, and has terrific water resistance.

[inkstainedruth]

For general use, I like Rohrer & Klingner’s iron-gall blue-black Salix, and also their i-g dusky-purple Scabiosa. Both are fairly low in iron content (when compared to official Registrars’ ink), so they retain much of their initial colour after curing on the paper instead of turning fully to black.

I'm not as big a fan of Scabiosa's color, but I have Salix in a pen at the moment -- I needed to pay some bills and also make reservations for something in April yesterday, and while it's not lightfast, I figure the mail will get to their destinations fast enough that it won't be an issue (and of course the water resistance is more crucial for envelopes, IMO). And I realized I hadn't used Salix for a while....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Karmachanic]

Today's favorite is Stipula Zafferano on a dull grey rainy day.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Karmachanic

[Mercian]

 

 

In what pens do you use Salix and Scabiosa? I love Scabiosa, but I don't think most of my pens do it justice.

 

Because they are iron-gall, I use them most often in pens that I can disassemble most easily (and that are ‘wet’-writers).

 

So, those are my Pelikan M205F, and my Parker Frontiers (F & M).

I also got good results from my Parker Vector & Urban (both M), but those are not as easy to take apart, so I don’t use my i-g inks in them.

 

Also, although Salix works beautifully in my Parker “51” ‘F’, in that pen Scabiosa felt very dry - I found the feel of it to be so unpleasant that it never got back in my “51”.

 

I think that both inks would probably shine from broader-nibbed wet-writing pens, but my handwriting is cramped and scrawly, so I don’t own any of those.

(At least I don’t own any yet... )

Edited February 21, 2020 by Mercian

[Mongoosey]

I don't have a pen that does Scabiosa justice either.

 

It's a beautiful ink, probably one of my favorite colors, but too dusky and faded. I don't prefer to reread notes written with it.

 

I used to use it in a TWSBI Eco (gifted away now), twist the plunger to saturate the feed fully before I wrote, and then I would get a most beautifully saturated line of Scabiosa for about an A5 page, and no matter how thick, it would never smudge once it dried. I've never had an ink that equalled that saturated color of Scabiosa. Soooo beautiful

[ENewton]

I don't have a pen that does Scabiosa justice either.

 

It's a beautiful ink, probably one of my favorite colors, but too dusky and faded. I don't prefer to reread notes written with it.

 

I used to use it in a TWSBI Eco (gifted away now), twist the plunger to saturate the feed fully before I wrote, and then I would get a most beautifully saturated line of Scabiosa for about an A5 page, and no matter how thick, it would never smudge once it dried. I've never had an ink that equalled that saturated color of Scabiosa. Soooo beautiful

 

 

The pen that has worked best for me so far is a rebranded Jinhao x750, with the feed saturated much as you describe. As in your case, the dramatic effect of deliberately saturating the feed lasts for only a short time before the line begins to dim and one has to saturate the feed again.

 

My Platinum Balance M yields a more consistent line, with nice shading, but never the glorious range provided by the Jinhao for the first page or so.

 

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with the TWSBI Eco. I had thought that a TWSBI pen might be a good choice, but it sounds as if the behavior with Scabiosa would be similar to what I have seen with my Jinhao. I also bought a Pelikan 140, about a year and a half ago, with the thought that it might be wet enough to use with Scabiosa, but that pen turns out to need a wet, lubricated ink.