Diamine ink and Montblanc Meisterstück

[94hokie]

Hello,

 

For my birthday my wife purchased a MEISTERSTÜCK HOMMAGE À FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN fountain pen and I really really love it. I was looking to purchase additional ink and both the website and the manual say that I should 'only use Montblanc' ink. I was reading some posts and would like to purchase Diamine New Century Fountain Pen Ink Chocolate Brown Writing Ink 80ml bottle but I want to be sure that it will not damage my pen. (I would like to use a couple of colors.)

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

James

[lsmith42]

Go for it... there are only a few inks that can supposedly damage a pen, and even those claims are contended on an almost daily basis.

 

Good luck sticking with "a couple of colors!"

[roger3]

Good luck sticking with "a couple of colors!"

+1 Good luck indeed! I use Diamine in MBs and do not have any issues except for the writer, who seems unable to put on paper any words that match the pen's majesty

[czar]

Hello,

 

For my birthday my wife purchased a MEISTERSTÜCK HOMMAGE À FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN fountain pen and I really really love it. I was looking to purchase additional ink and both the website and the manual say that I should 'only use Montblanc' ink. I was reading some posts and would like to purchase Diamine New Century Fountain Pen Ink Chocolate Brown Writing Ink 80ml bottle but I want to be sure that it will not damage my pen. (I would like to use a couple of colors.)

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

James

Dear James,

all pen manifacturers tend to have quite a strict policy on ink usage: you can use every ink you want but it has to be branded by them!

 

In general every well known ink is ok for you: Parker, Waterman, Diamine, Pelikan, Aurora, Omas ...... just to name some of them.

I have 4 montblanc fountain pen and I use quite regularly them with different inks. The only point of attention I suggest is that with piston filling fountain pen you use

"regular" colors as blue and black and not exaggerate with special colors (red, orange, ....). In any case, also with strange colours, if you wash up your fountain pen regularly,

you will not have any problem.

 

If you force me to give you an advice: Parker Ink have a particular composition that let you avoid clogging problems. Someone says that Parker black is not so excellent,

but in general I use it for particularly delicate pen as piston ones.

 

Yours

 

Cesare

[Sandy1]

Hello -- Please tell us the type (width) of nib on the pen; also the height of your 'normal' writing - choosing say, a lower-case 'o' and 'r' to get that measurement, -- Bye, S1

[parkerstylo]

Go for it... there are only a few inks that can supposedly damage a pen, and even those claims are contended on an almost daily basis.

 

I agree. I understand that Mb pens are relatively 'wet' writers, so you may want to avoid inks with high surfactant concentation, or the ink can just splurge onto the page.

 

I tried Noodler's HOD (one of my favourite inks) with my Mb146 and the result was poor... like writing with a syringe.

 

For permanent inks, Mb Blue-Black and Sailor nano-black have a nice conservative flow and work very well.

 

For non-permanent inks, I've been told that Diamine and Herbin ranges work well in Mb pens.

[Ed Ronax]

I have liked Diamine inks for some time and have used them a lot in my Montblancs, no problems at all.

[welch]

The Mont Blanc manual is bunkum. Baloney.

 

"Ink is ink", as the owner of Fountain Pen Hospital once told me.

 

Of all the inks, Diamine is one of the best flowing, most lubricating, and least harmful to fountain pens. See Richard Binder's essay, in "glossary", I think, on inks. That's RichardsPens.com.

 

If Mont Blanc documentation says -- probably in writing -- that they will void all warranties unless you use their ink, then they have probably violated a big clear US law. I worked for GE for 15 years, and every year we read and were tested on and signed an ethics pledge promising never to tie products like that. Imagine if GE insisted that you could only use GE light bulbs when connecting to a power plant running GE generators! Consider that GE is one of the two or three biggest makers of "power systems", and imagine the bonanza for The Company. Also, such "product tying" and so viciously illegal that Congress would go back to the anti-trust laws and add one just to blast GE.

 

Imagine if ABC bought a part share in a TV maker, and then told you that you could only watch ABC TV? And that you could only watch Disney movies, with "ABC identity cards" checked at every movie theater, with a threat that your TV would stop working if you went to a movie made by FOX.

 

This sounds bad for Mont Blanc. I hope, maybe, that the OP has mis-read the instructions. Of course it's a lie, but probably fair game, to hint that a Mont Blanc pen works "better" if you use MB ink. Typical sleazy advertising. If, however, there is an implied threat to your warranty if you don't use their ink -- which is certainly not the world's greatest -- then MB is asking to be charged with a crime. Not just sued, but charged with violating the law.

 

(I didn;t notice where this happened to the OP, but EU law is not dramatically different from US law or UK law or Canadian or Australian law. Probably illegal everywhere.)

 

*

 

NOTE: I raised my tone a lot because another poster wrote that a Mont Blance salesman told him or her that Waterman ink, of all things, would damage a Mont Blanc. For an accurate statement, again see Richard's essay.

 

Is this a Mont Blanc policy?

Edited April 9, 2010 by welch

[94hokie]

Thank you for the great advice. I purchased several diamine colors including a two sets of Standard European Fountain Pen Ink Cartridges (Blue black and prussian blue). I purchased a couple of ink well colors (Umber, Pumpkin, and Chocolate Brown).

 

I am trying to improve my handwriting after an epiphany. There are not many times where we 'write' typically I type so I'm trying to improve my handwriting. (I think it will be a slow process

 

The nib on my pen is M and I write at 7 to 8 nibs in height.

[welch]

To be clear. If "both the website and the manual say that I should 'only use Montblanc' ink", then Mont Blanc has violated anti-trust laws if they attached a penalty to your NOT using their ink.

 

The phrase "only use" implies that the pen won't work or will be harmed with any of the good inks on the market. They could "honestly" say "You'll have better results with Mont Blanc ink". That's just advertising. Toyota will always tell yiou to bring your car back to he dealer, where a Toyota-certified mechanic can work on it. That's just normal.

 

The phrase that asks for a lawsuit is "only use". Further, Mont Blanc was sued for doing just this, and they lost. If Mont Blanc has started again, then they are probably violating whatever agreement ended the previous case.