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I get a frequent E-mail from Jet Pens touting their sales. In the latest one they make a big thing about having Noodler's inks in stock. So I looked. The price of every Noodler's ink on their site is $15 per bottle, and these are the French square bottles, the "3 oz." ones. Is the price of Noodler's ink being raised by 20% everywhere, or is Jet Pens the only one charging this new price for it? Will we see other vendors selling Noodler's inks for more soon? I know that Nathan went to the (mostly) unpopular plastic bottles for a while in order to avoid a price rise on the inks, so it would seem strange for him to suddenly raise the price by 20% after that experience.

Noodler's Nib Creaper, Jade: A day in the life. . . For me, writing on the move is a must. My journals need a hard cover, my pens have to put up with a lot of jostling, motion, and the occasional hard stop when I put my bag down too roughly, and given the hit and miss reputation Noodler's pens seem to have around here I thought the perfect way for me to review a Noodler's pen, as a fountain pen novice, was to take it out and about, and see how it behaves compared to my other three pens. So I filled it last night with Black Parker Quink (because you can't get more basic than that), wrote a test piece in my paper blanks journal (which are worth every penny of their hefty pricetag, let me tell you. I will review them soon) and you can the results for yourself. You can see from the sheen on the last line just how wet it is, that took a good two minutes to dry out. Just to compare I took my Lamy joy and scribbled a short note below this one and. . . Given how smooth the paper blanks paper is I figured that it would have an effect on drying times, but the Lamy ink was safe to touch after about 8-12 seconds. Obviously a flex nib is going to write wetter than anything else, but the disparity in drying times was huge, especially since my Berea Navigator has used the same ink on all sorts of paper and gotten sub 12-second drying times. So anyway. I let the pen sit overnight, level on my desk, because I wanted to check for seeping and when I returned to it a scant eight hours later this is what I discovered. You can *just* see the ink seeping around the sides of the feed and clinging to the wings of the nib. Seeing as how I was on my way out, I topped up the reservoir and this time, instead of leaving the reservoir full I squeezed two drops back out, wound the piston up and cleaned off whatever I could see from the underside of the feed. I was reasonably confident by this point that I wasn't going to have any problems, but I slipped the pen back in the little cellophane pouch it was wrapped in inside the box and stuffed that in the pen loop on my journal cover. still a tighter fit than a ballpoint or an artline 200, but better than a Lamy (I can only fit the clip through the loop. Just). My journal cover also likes to travel in style inside my "leather" messenger bag, which I've had for so long it's bound to fall apart any day now. I've lefth bot my Safari and my Navigator laying around in here for weeks with no issues, so I want to see what a Noodler's pen will put up with, and after a trip to the station, a train ride, a hurried walk through the city and a bus ride we see. . . Not much difference. There was also no ink in the cap, but I couldn't get a decent photo of that. If a nib creaper can handle me running around, dodging and weaving through crowds, and even dropping my carry bag twice, then I don't think that it's gonna leak. Writing on the rougher paper though definitely has its drawbacks. You can see in the closeup that the ink would chase long fibres across the surface of the paper and the show-through was almost legible on the other side. All in all I'm quite happy with this pen, but it definitely needs good quality paper and I don't know how I feel about paying 30 bucks a hit for everyday journaling. I would happily keep this for letter writing and signing things, and I would love one of these with a standard nib, but the flex and the wetness are things I would still have to learn how to use. One impression I got through using the Nib Creaper on good paper was the tactile memory of journaling on a moving train with an Artline 200 felt tip. A wonderful experience that recalls days where I would have to fight the urge to just stay curled up in my seat and just keep writing away for hours. Summary: ______________________________________________________________________ Appearance & Design (7/10) - Love the colour! The colour range in Noodler's pens is fantastic, and I love the marbled colour contrasts. I have never "ooed" and "aahd" so much over a writing implement before. I love the smaller form factor Noodler's are working with and I will definitely get another one. Construction & Quality (7/10) - You feel the price, but you get a lot for it. Cheap doesn't have to mean bad, and Noodler's have certainly proved that point. While it is certainly more colourful than your standard array of ballpoints on the shelf at officeworks it still leaves me with this kind of impression. Yet, in spite of this it has already proven that it can handle my day-to-day routine without spilling stains everywhere. Weight & Dimensions (9/10) - Long, slender, and lightweight Capped: 131mm Uncapped: 118mm Posted: 140mm Weight: circa 20 grams Nib & Performance (7/10) - Wet and smooth, but a little scratchy on cheaper paper Getting the tines to flex takes less pressure than you would think, I was having some trouble with starting on some down strokes, and experimenting with different holding positions and angles didn't seem to help any. Also: on my cheaper journal paper there was definite bleed and show through due to the wetness of the write, and the nib felt a little scratchy. That said, it was only a matter of a few millimetres each time the feed wasn't dry simply starting at times seems to require a little flex now and then. Filling System & Maintenance (10/10) - Classic reliable piston filler moving the piston the first time was a little stiff but ever since the piston mechanism has been easy to use. Taking the time to leave a little room in the reservoir seems to have headed off any potential worries with ink bleeding out the feed. Even as someone who has a preference for converters I have zero complaints. Cost & Value (9/10) - Cheap and exceptionally cheerful! At 16.10 USD (plus postage) from Goulet pens, if you're looking to experiment with a flex nib you can't go wrong. Conclusion (49/60) - I am going to take this pen on more adventures. Next weekend I am going to take my Paper Blanks journal, and go for a long ride before settling down under a tree somewhere with my Nib Creaper.

I purchased my first Lamy today! Being the purple lover that I am I went with the Dark Lilac the color is absolutely gorgeous. It feels so comfortable in my hand, I love the grip. However, I'm not too sure if I'm keen on the nib (medium)...or maybe it's the ink (Noodler's Bat Black Texas). It feels like it "skips", for lack of better terms (I'm a newbie). Or maybe it's scratchy. Take a look at my pics and tell me what you think (excuse my handwriting, por favor!)

Those of us who are fans of Noodler's for whatever reason have probably seen the YouTube video on how durable Noodler's pens are. If not, it starts out with Nathan Tardif getting into a vehicle and running over a Charlie eyedropper pen and a clear demonstrator Konrad rollerball pen. First on bare ground, then on wet asphalt. He then proceeds to fire another set of said pens from a 10ga over-under shotgun (according to Nathan, it's not something you can legally get away with anymore...). Here's a link to the video: Now, what this tells me at 4am is that the Konrad appears durable enough to clip to a hip pocket of a pair of jeans and carry that way throughout a typical day. I normally carry a Tuffwriter Precision Press aluminum pen in that same position and have had only occasional problems with the mechanism being activated as I move about. The Precision Press is a clicky-type ballpoint/rollerball/gel writer depending on what refill you use, and sometimes mine ends up being in the 'clicked' position when I remove it from my pocket. The tip of the pen also tends to start unscrewing a bit as well. I blame that on the 3 small o-rings on the front part of the pan, myself. What this boils down to is a question, of course. Would a Konrad rollerball be able to withstand the abuse of being clipped to a hip pocket and basically sat on during a normal day? I'd hate to find out the hard way that my pen cracked and leaked a pen's worth of ink all over my pants.

Just received my sample of Whaleman's Sepia from Goulet. This is an ink that, according to older posts, should be dry, thick, and prone to clogging. The consistency of my sample seems to be no thicker than the regular Noodler's inks. Inked it up in a Preppy fine, and the flow is comparable to regular Noodler's ink in that pen as well. It writes light brown with a tiny reddish hue, lighter than most of the reviews I've seen (sorry I don't have my scanner with me). This begs the question whether this has been reformulated/diluted to correct the reported drying/clogging behavior of previous batches. I left the cap off that Preppy for a whopping 10min in the dry California climate, and it started writing again after only 4-5 dry strokes. In comparison, I previously inked the same pen with 54th Massachusetts and left the cap off for 5min, and it refused to write until I wicked the feed with tissue paper. If this sounds nothing like the experience you've had with Whaleman's Sepia before, and you love the color, I think it won't hurt to get a sample of the new lot. I was prepared to hate its behavior and now I'm kissing the paper it had glided on

Hello, All! My daughter will be 8 next month and she wants an Edison pen in Hawaiian (Unicorn Barf). She does use fountain pens and while I understand wanting a pen, I can't seem to justify a $150+ pen purchase for an 8-year old. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good, less expensive alternative? I looked at the Noodler's Konrad pens, but none of the colors were right. Thanks if advance for your help!

So, I bought a bottle of Noodler's Kung Te-Cheng about a year ago because I just loved the color. I had heard it had some behavior issues, like drying or hard starts, but I figured, with proper pen maintenance, I could live with that. However, the issue that keeps coming up is not something I've read about before. Basically, whenever I have Kung Te Cheng in a pen, the entire contents of the converter end up emptying into the pen cap. This has happened in a Pilot Metro (F), Lamy Safari (M), Noodler's Charlie, and now Conklin Duragraph (1.1 stub). I'm very careful with my pens, and if I do need to transport them somewhere, I put them in a F-C pen case, with the pens lying on their sides, not nib down. This is the only ink that has ever caused this issue in any pen. Also, just to be clear, it's not the same as nib creep, since it's literally the entire contents of the converter that leak out and fill up the cap. Has anyone else has this issue with their Kung Te-Cheng? I've read that diluting the ink helps with some other behavior issues, so would it also help with this leaking issue? How much should I dilute it? (Also, just to be clear, I'm not picking on Noodler's. I use and love many of their other inks, but just have issues with this particular one) Thank you.

I was wondering if you could post your experiences of Noodler's Navy. I saw this ink some time ago and I always liked that shading to the turquoise green range so I thought I would really like this ink. I bought it very recently, sadly got one of the plastic bottles (there seem to be loads of these in circulation still) but was very disappointed with the ink. I like the colour, but it is so deeply saturated that there is no shading to it at all. I don't have it in a particularly wet writer, in fact I put it in a slightly dry pen for the sake of the shading. I know sometimes that inks have to be reformulated, but couldn't see any thread where this might be the case, so I was wondering if anyone else had bought it recently and whether it demonstrated shading or not. I'm tempted to dilute it slightly to see what happens and would like to hear also if anyone has done this and if it had any adverse effects on behaviour (as it is the behaviour is great).

Here's a video I made a while ago demonstrating a Parker 45. It's the midnight blue model with a medium nib. I have it inked with Noodler's Navy which matches it almost perfectly. The bit-rate in the video is kinda low due to editing with Windows Movie Maker. Enjoy! I have more videos like this on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6pAl06Dx2E1WqWof7JnnvA

Having committed myself to this project in June, I have tested circa 100 different fountain pens inks, and it’s six months down the line that the investigation is now really starting to pay off. Please click the link to view all images related to this post: https://quinkandbleach.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/and-the-real-magic-begins/ All fountain ink brands contain chemicals within their fluids to: increase paper penetration, minimise spreading and increase drying time. Other than that, each individual product can vary considerably and as shown in previous blogs, the the variations between products are wide ranging. Diamine produce an in-depth range of fountain pen inks made from dyes that when subjected to my water and bleach tests react in a visual way that is both dramatic and intriguing. Very often, the different dyes that make up the ink colour range reveal themselves in the gorgeous water wash blends and the bleach reacts with them in intensity from white or yellow gold to a stunning neon. Noodlers, on the other hand’ are known for creating ‘bulletproof inks’ to minimise fading and to prevent document tampering and forgery. These inks are agent (including bleach) resistant and often demonstrate a degree of resistance to water, which is equally exciting as the inks break down leaving a sediment effect, rather like a watercolour paint, often on top of a feint translucent base colour. What I have done here is lay down a background of Diamine Sunset onto a heavy Bockingford watercolour paper, which washes out a gorgeous range of dark and mid tone reddy browns with pinky reds and yellows. Then, using a Daedalus pen with a Zebra G flex nib I have rendered the illustration and type with the agent resistant Noodlers Lexington Gray. Once dried thoroughly I applied mid strength bleach washes over the illustration which only reacted with the background underneath. The final effect is visually pleasing in many ways as not only has the outcome been achieved using only two inks, adhering to my ethos of ‘less is more’, BUT because of the limited colour palette, the complex final image looks fresh and not overworked. The mottled gold areas where the bleach hasn’t obliterated the background colour add those magical serendipity effects unique to fountain pen inks. The subject matter may not be to everyone’s taste, but the technique is what counts, as I believe it to be unique to fountain pen inks. It’s simple, time efficient and visually dramatic! I am becoming increasingly convinced that fountain pen ink art could and maybe should become a proper genre of its’ own?

OK, this ink may well be a bit controversial. The label alone probably violates the FPN discussion guidelines, so I know I'll be treading on thin ice. Hopefully the moderators will allow a little leeway here, as I'm mostly discussing the ink. I hope you appreciate the tongue-in-cheek commentary. Now where is my little red star and Mao jacket? I personally find the label very funny. I found a very nice image from the PenChalet web site. I acted as a good anarchist and simply liberated it from a capitalist exploiter. So for all to see, who weren't able to get a bottle, here it is showing Great Leader Comrade Sanders vanquishing the Evil Capitalists and sending them to Hell. I'm not sure of the reference "Bernacke did not bern the dollars fast enough?" since Janet Yellen has been Chair of the Federal Reserve since February 3, 2014. There is a YouTube video where Mr. Tardiff discusses the ink, but I just don't have that much patience. So to the ink, Comrade Brothers and Sisters! I used the usual papers MvL=Mohawk via Linen, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, TR=Tomoe River. The ink is advertised as fast-drying so it can be used by lefties. I presume this means left-handed people, but the pun is probably intended. On the Hammermill paper, the ink did indeed dry very fast, just over one second. Fast. But on the Mohawk paper, it had a very normal drying time of about 10 seconds. And on the Hammermill paper there was some show-through and bleed-through even with normal writing. The Mohawk and Tomoe River papers did not exhibit this property. So it seems like there might be a bit of a tradeoff with this ink between its dry-time and paper handling. Initially I really disliked the look of this ink, it seemed too bright, too searing. But now that I look at the reviews, they seem fine. After all, red is my least favorite color. I personally like the look on the Mohawk and Tomoe River papers over the Hammermill inkjet paper, which seems lifeless to me. It looks fine in the photo, but it's less wonderful in person. The ink is very water-resistant. It would be great for corrections and mark-up. Now if you think that you will like this ink, I must give you the ultimate disappointment: this ink is unobtanium. It is totally, totally sold out. Hopefully, when Great Leader, Sun of the People, Comrade Sanders becomes President of the People's Republic of America, Mr. Tardiff can be gently persuaded to bring this ink back into production.

I had filled my new Ahab with Noodler's Catalpa for a quick comparison I did for this forum, and decided to see if I could use a Zebra G nib with it (whole 'nuther story), which meant cleaning out the Catalpa. So after emptying the pen and flushing it well, I came across one of the common consequences of using certain Noodler's inks, i.e. staining. The piston on the Ahab now looks like this: Nice green patina! And that's after several turns in an ultrasonic cleaner. And a scrub with a cotton bud. The odd thing is, the component that stained seems to be the UV reactive part: That's almost the identical colour glow to Blue Ghost, just a shade on the greener side. Won't stop me refilling the pen, as it's now got its Zebra fitted for me to do some practicing with, as I'm just starting out with flexible nibs. Nor will it stop me using Catalpa in future. Love the colour and its behaviour, which is very good. Other than the above, of course!

So I hadn't used my Noodler's #41 in a long time (at least a year probably and maybe even longer—I guess that's what happens when you buy way too much ink). When I unboxed it, it looked like this: I shook it up really well to see if it would recombine—or whatever the chemical term is—and it seemed to, but after leaving it overnight, it separated again. I'm not bashing the ink at all. I loved it the few times I used it. It was in its box in a dark drawer, but I can understand how ignoring it for so long could have resulted in some funky reactions. But my question is: is it safe to assume this bottle has gone bad? Should I sit the kids down and let them know it's gone to live on a big farm upstate where it will have plenty of room to run and play?

Well, Noodler's perhaps doesn't need an introduction, as everyone knows that Mr. Nathan Tardiff creates this inky lineup at his secret inky factory. A very extensive line of inks it is. Some are basic, some are more interesting. This one falls into the more basic range. That is not a negative, as not everyone wants a super shady, sheeny ink with glitter. Sometimes you just want an ink that works without fuss and I think this ink fits that criteria. This ink falls on the drier end of the wetness scale, but it is but no means "dry". I used a Lamy AL-Star (M-Steel) which is decently wet, but with this ink I got a bit finer line than I might have expected. I also tried the ink on some cheap Cambridge notebook paper which usually has serious problems with show through and bleed through, and while there was a good amount of show through, the bleed through was limited. It has reasonably short dry times on the papers used, and no problems with skips, start-up, etc., and the converter experienced no staining. There was a little bit of ink collecting on the top surface of the nib, but nothing major, and it wiped off easily. The ink is water resistant, so another plus. Papers used were MvL=Mohawk via Linen, Hij=Hammermill 28lb inkjet, TR=Tomoe River. As is typical, the images all seem to show the ink as darker than in reality. It's a middle brown, and it never shows as black or even dark brown. It's much lighter than Sailor Kobe #3, perhaps a little lighter than Iroshizuku Tsukushi. It is definitely a cool brown.

Full review with pics here: http://thefrugalfountainpen.blogspot.com/2016/03/noodlers-10-dixie-rebellion-red-ripple.html I am a fan of Noodler's pens. They are affordable, well made, and a tinkerer's dream. They have their origins in India and I love Indian pens. They are easy to break down and clean and can be easily customized by just adding a new nib. I know that some people think they are finicky and temperamental, but I have found them to be very reliable once they are set up correctly. The object of this review is the #10 Dixie Rebellion Red Ripple Konrad. I would like to thank Luxury Brands (Noodler's distributor) for making this pen available for review. The #10 is a piston filler with a very simple mechanism. It is very easy to fill and it stores a fair amount of ink. This pen has an ebonite body with an acrylic ink window and is a very attractive medium-sized pen. The pen cap is solid-black, there is a silver colored band at the bottom of the cap and the body is figured reddish brown and black ebonite with a solid-black blind cap. The clip is also silver-colored and is quite stiff. The pen is about 5.5" long, the cap width is about 9/16" and the body is about 7/16" at its widest point. The grip section is about 3/8". It weighs only .6 oz. when filled with ink.As the pen is made of ebonite, it has a faint rubber smell. I found it warm and comfortable to hold and the cap posts securely and deeply. Out of the box, it was fitted with the #6 Noodler's fine medium-flex nib. In my writing tests, I found it to be a smooth writer with good ink flow. As with other Noodler's flex pens I have used, it requires quite a bit of pressure to get any line variation. If you write with normal pressure, you will get a uniform fine/medium line. I pulled the nib out slightly to make it flex a bit easier. However, if you want to flex a lot, you have to take it slow otherwise you will experience some railroading. The #10 Konrad has a lot of things I like in a pen: Nibs can be easily replaced with any #6 nib. Easy to disassemble for cleaning and maintenance. Piston filler mechanism. Holds plenty of ink. Machined ebonite feed. Great pen for the pen tinkerer. All in all, it is a wonderful value for an ebonite piston-filler.

Did a quick search and didn't see this mentioned yet, but I could be wrong - apologies if this is a duplicate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIXyBr3-af0 Noodler's BERNing Red, billed as a quick dry ink for lefties. I'm not a lefty, but I can it being useful. Since this video was only posted March 1st 2016 I'm not sure when the ink would be available. (I'm not going to comment on the politics of this, btw , but the label is pretty cool)

Luxury Brands Ink Miser Inkwell videos. The Intra-Bottle Inkwell is good for getting that last drop of Noodler's from bottle to pen. That is assuming you ever empty one of those 3 ounce bottles which is something I have yet to do. Besides the uses shown in the videos, soaking a pen just up to the nib would be a really good use for the Ink-Shot. I might just need a row of these to clean pens after paper tests.

Hello Good People, Inspired by some comments following my recent purchase of what are probably the last bottles of Coral Sea and Catalpa for sale in Australia, I did a quick and dirty comparison of those inks, along with Violet Vote, both the original formula and the 'last batch' formulation, which arrived today courtesy of Anderson Pens (usual disclaimer applies). I included a few other inks to hand for comparison purposes, so that it is easier to judge the colours, given the variations in the way different computer screens display colours. So here's the comparison sheet: The paper is Rhodia 80 gsm. The colours are fairly close to the original on my laptop screen, so it should give a fairly good indication. Note that the swabs for the two Violet Votes are the wrong way round (had a brain spasm at the time!). The Coral Seas and Catalpas look identical, but you should be able to see that the newer VV is much redder than the original, and to me it's not quite as nice a colour. Here's a quick shot of the two bottles side by side (original on the left): Quite different. What was even more surprising, was when I accidentally shone UV light on the bottle: Sorry about the poor focus, and for some reason the bottles ended up the other way around (original on the right), but the effect is obvious, and you can see the glow from the label of the original bottle. So I did another quick and dirty comparison sheet, with some of the Noodler's UV reactive inks that I had to hand. Photographing that under UV, given that I only had a small UV torch (flashlight), was a little challenging, but I hope the results speak for themselves. First the sheet in normal light: Please excuse the odd blots, my Ahab did a burp. The paper is a sheet of Moleskine from a cahier, which has no UV-reactive chemicals added, so it highlights the effect. Here's the same sheet in UV only: You can clearly see that the new-formula VV is fluorescing in UV light, and the original formula looks almost black as it's not reacting, but there's enough visible light to show it on the page with a hint of violet. The Catalpa and Coral Sea didn't show up as well in the photo as they do by eye, nor did the Fox Red. Here are the bottles under UV, with Coral Sea on the left: Well, that was fun. I hope it's been of some interest to you. Cheers, Effrafax.

Noodler's has released a limited edition 2016 edition of their ink "The Violet Vote" which was originally a Pendamonium exclusive that was discontinued when one or more ingredients became unavailable. I never had the original ink, so I cannot compare this ink to it. So it will be evaluated on it's own merits. To me the color seems very unique. The ink is eternal, so it is totally waterproof, and proof against many other methods of erasure/alteration. I have a number of Noodler's inks and have never had problems with them. I must say, it is the exception rather than the rule. This ink howeverdid have some issues with the Hammermill inkjet paper. This is a fairly heavy paper, 28 lb text weight, so it's not thin at all. I rarely have any problems with "show through", and even less with "bleed through". For some reason this ink had problems in both areas. I was able to write a review of another ink on the back side without problem, and probably could have written using The Violet Vote, but I rarely have these problems even with Noodler's inks, so I feel I should mention this. You may need to choose your nib and paper more carefully with this ink. The ink also has a strong chemical aroma, even when writing. So those with chemical sensitivities may wish to consider an alternative ink. The ink dried in a reasonable time on the MvL, and on the Hij almost immediately, within three seconds. That's very fast in my estimation. The ink is more expensive than the usual Noodler's line as I suspect there may have been a custom order of dye involved, which anyone in manufacturing knows ends up costing quite a bit more. As of this writing (3/6/2016), Anderson Pens and Goulet Pens are out-of-stock of this ink. GoldSpot lists the ink as available. I suspect within a few more weeks this ink will be unobtanium. The papers used were MvL=Mohawk via Linen, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, TR=Tomoe River. Since we have an ink that's all about voting, we have a list of the Democratic Presidential candidates since 1968. There is another review (F-C Tenebris Purpuratum) that has the corresponding Republican candidates over that time frame.

A few points first: I'm one of those neurotic types that fills online shopping carts only to obsess and agonize about it for days before finally pulling the trigger. Or deleting the whole order, lol. Also, I tend to read a ton of reviews. Finally, I appreciate asking any questions of this nature will elicit a wide range of responses and YMMV type warnings. But not asking is just no fun at all So, I have a bunch of inks I've been stalking online and trying to decide which to prudently order as samples and which to just go whole hog and get the bottle. I've not tried any of these yet. Which would you get as full bottles and which as samples? Rohrer & Klingner Alt Gold-grunRohrer & Klingner Leipziger SchwartzRohrer & Klingner VerdigrisJ Herbin - Perle NoireJ Herbin - Poussiere de LuneNoodler's - Zhivago

Noodler's is one of the companies that don't need introductions. Nathan's Tardiff work is unimaginable. The guy must be a vampire who doesn't sleep and feeds on developing ideas: new inks, new pens. Nooder's Cayenne displays a huge range of shade - from yellowish through brown around the deep orange base. The ink dries fairly quickly, between 20 and 30 seconds on Rhodia paper, it behaves well, and is well lubricated. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Software Id Tomoe River, Kaweco Sport Classic, B Leuchtturm 1917, Kaweco Sport Classic, B Comparison

Well, I feel a little bad about posting a review of an ink that is most likely unobtanium. A sample was sent to me early last year, and I've only now gotten to actually trying the ink. It was apparently a Noodler's custom ink for perhaps a Swedish Pen Club. I don't remember the exact circumstances surrounding this ink. I don't know if it was a one-off, or something that is restocked. Perhaps there is someone in Sweden or Stockholm who could clarify matters. A vintage style blue kind of like a royal blue. This ink for some reason seemed dry to me, which usually isn't the case with Noodler's. The ink dries almost instantly, and is totally waterproof. I forgot to do a chromatography before I emptied the pen. The pic for the Mohawk via Linen is very accurate to my eyes comparing on screen and on paper. Here the ink looks brighter and darker, almost like PPS, which this ink definitely is not.

Greetings All, I love the color and waterproofness of Noodler's La Reine Mauve, but would like to get some shading with it in a flex pen. Has anyone come up with a perfect ink:water ratio to produce a little shading with this ink? Before I experiment with this rather pricey ink, I wanted to see if someone had already done the work. Thanks!

FPN has some of it's own custom inks, made for them by Nathan Tardiff, aka Noodler's. As always, Noodler's inks have some kind of theme going on with the name, and this one is named after Alexandr Dumas' famous 1850 novel Tulipe Noire. Because it's written in French, it's especially famous in France. Since there is no such flower as a Black Tulip, this ink follows the purple tulip. It's a really great "plum" color. There's really great handling with this ink. It's possible that in the right pen and on the right paper it will shade very well, but I've only gotten "ok" shading. But it's still a nice ink. As usual for me, paper used was MvL=Mohawk via Linen, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, TR=Tomoe River. This pic I think shows the ink as a bit darker than it really is. And to much blue. This pic is better at representing the color. Somewhat water-resistant. Due to the dye load, some washes away, but enough is left to be readable.

I am aware from reading around that some Noodler's inks aren't made for mixing because of some components reactive producing precipitation and what not. I am wondering if any of you has had any experience with mixing 54th with quink, pilot, sheaffer, lamy. To my experience with the 4 inks, they are all completely compatible, but I am wondering if they are harmless to mix 54th as well.. thank you!