Parker Quink Turquoise

[dcwaites]

Parker Quink Turquoise

 

I came across a bottle of this NOS ink in a shop at Chatswood, Sydney. The full name is Parker Quink Permanent Turquoise, and like all the older Parker Quinks, it contains Solv-X. Unfortunately, it appears that all of their stock of this ink had less than optimal seals in the lids, as they all have lost about 1/4 due to evaporation. Anyway, I couldn't let it pass, so I bought a bottle.

 

Properties of this ink

Colour

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3090/3119363325_3bc9f79473_o.jpg

This ink is a light teal, not bright, but pleasant and gentle on the eyes. It is very similar to Diamine Aqua, the comparison ink.

Writing Sample

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3202/3119363445_cec887d241_o.jpg

I have done two samples of writing with the same pen, my Jinhao Long March. One sample is the PQ Turquoise, the other is Diamine Aqua Blue.

Wetness

- Medium Dry

The PQ Turquoise appears to be a little drier than vintage PQ Blue-Black of a similar age. In a pen that is a little on the dry side, you get a thin, flat line that sometimes narrows down a bit if the nib is not right on the sweet spot. This is an ink that would suit a medium wet pen.

Feathering

- Very Good

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3100/3120190254_668b320716_m.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3183/3120190196_eab0168879_m.jpg

I tried this ink on a number of different papers and could only get it to feather on the worst of the papers. The sample on the left is the PQ Turquoise and on the right is Diamine Aqua Blue. The Diamine Aqua Blue feathers a little more than the PQ Turquoise.

Bleeding

- Good

This ink shows relatively little bleeding, compared to other inks. It is comparable to my vintage PQ Blue-Black, and better than Diamine Aqua Blue or Noodler's Ottoman Azure.

Shading

- Not Much

This is a medium saturated ink, with a light colour. In the several pens I tried it in, and on several papers, I got only a little shading, and that tended to be at the end of descending strokes.

Wettability

- Not Much

This is not an ink that wets nibs easily. Consequently, nib creep should be non-existent. This probably contributes to it being a medium dry ink.

Smoothness and Lubrication

- Not Much

Like the other vintage inks in the Parker Quink stable, this is a thin ink that provides little lubrication. And while it works beautifully in a smooth pen like a Parker 51, it is not what you would call a smooth ink.

Other Properties

Permanency

- Not Much.

While Parker called this a 'Permanent' ink, that permanency is relative to their 'Washable' inks. It will still come off with water, and bleach will remove all traces of it from clothes.

 

Solv-X

This is one of Parker's vintage inks, sadly no longer made, that has Solv-X in it. I like to use a Solv-X ink to condition and clean pens that have mild problems feeding ink. I bought this ink because it is a much nicer looking Solv-X ink that boring old PQ Blue-Black.

 

Summary

As mentioned above, this is a vintage ink, it has a pleasant colour, and would seem to work in many pens, except for the ultra dry. It has great feathering and bleeding properties, so should work well on many tipes of paper. It has no problem wetting even the hardest and smoothest of papers.

However, this is not an ink like Parker Penman Sapphire or Emerald. It could easily be replaced by Diamine Aqua Blue unless you need a good, non-feathering ink.

 

Edited December 19, 2008 by dcwaites

[Beechwood]

Nice review, thankyou

[lovemy51]

well done review. thanx!! very nice color, although not something i wanna see on letter paper.

[Ann Finley]

How does Solv-X affect the drying time? My guess, since you've said it is thin & has a dry flow, is that it dries very quickly--would that be correct? (If you rub your finger over a word 3 seconds after you've written it, is there any smearing?)

 

Best, Ann

[dcwaites]

How does Solv-X affect the drying time? My guess, since you've said it is thin & has a dry flow, is that it dries very quickly--would that be correct? (If you rub your finger over a word 3 seconds after you've written it, is there any smearing?)

 

Best, Ann

Sorry for the late reply, I only just noticed your question.

 

I haven't tried this ink for drying time. I will be adding that to future reviews and test.

 

Alas, I can no longer test this ink. While it seemed to behave itself, I noticed after emptying a pen with some of this ink still in it, that I had the dreaded SITB, and so the whole bottle went down the sink. As well, the couple of pens I had used it in got thoroughly flushed and soaked in 10% household ammonia.

 

In general, I don't think that Solv-X affects drying time. I have noticed that there is a difference in the dyes used in Solv-X era Quink inks and modern Quink inks. This applies to PQ Blue-Black and PQ Blue, and I think it also applies to PQ Black. That would certainly account for any difference in drying times with vintage vs modern Quink inks.

 

 

 

 

[Breck]

Too bad about the slime. Nice review overall, though.

[Peter from Sherwood Park]

Thank you for the review and the determination that Diamine Aqua Blue was a good colour match.

[Parker Quink Turquoise]

Parker Quink Turquoise was the ink I used when I went from a ball point to a fountain pen back in high school.Still have some of those old empty bottles.Seems to me that one had 49 cents marked on it and the other 75 cents.

 

This is one of my favourite colours and I have picked up a fair number of full bottles of it over the years.Have some of the old blue diamond shaped bottles as well as the new ones.

 

 

[watch_art]

i have a bottle of this and LOVE it. it's my favorite blue color so far. it's just perfect except for the smell. did yours stink? it's smells like something crawled into my pen and died!

 

bluh...

but i'll use it till it's gone cuz it's PURDY.

[kwpalzang]

Aww, the vintage ink go bye-bye? You could have kept it and filtered it for dip pens! We have to feed something to the mommies and daddies of our beloved fountain pen. Yes, dip pens are venerable, flexy creations sent from the heavens.

Do you think the ink became more saturated in the bottle due to evaporation?

[breaker]

nice review

[mori45]

Thanks for the review!

[watch_art]

dry time from my pilot vp fine nib:

 

4.5 - 5 seconds

[The-Thinker]

is this the closet match till this day or are there other options ?