30 Green Inks Reviewed: Part 1 - Introduction And Swabs

[geoduc]

After seeing dcpritch's excellent comparison of sepia inks (Sepia, Part 1, Sepia Part 2) I decided to take on a similar review of green inks, specifically the murky and olive greens. Based on some suggestions from other FPN members, the list rapidly expanded to include a wide range of green inks or inks with green tones that tend towards the gray, brown, olive, and yellow end of the spectrum. I purposely excluded green inks with strong blue undertones for a couple of reasons. First of all, there are a lot of them and thus they could have a dedicated review/comparison of their own if someone is so inclined, and secondly, I prefer the yellow/olive/murkygreens and already had a number of them available in my collection.

 

This is part 1 of the comparison, consisting of the introduction, large writing samples, and swabs. Part 2 (Green inks part 2)contains performance data and detailed writing samples for each ink.

 

Once the final list of inks was determined, I made swabs of each and decided to arrange the inks in color groups based on the swab colors. This was somewhat successful, although I found that actual writing samples did not necessarily reflect the colors seen in the swabs. Oh well, it was a good lesson in why swabs aren't particularly useful. Anyway, here is the list of inks in the order in which they are presented:

 

- Sailor Miruai (Sailor seasonal ink from Spring, 2010 - discontinued)

- Diamine Graphite

- Noodler's Sequoia

- Diamine Green/Black

- Diamine Evergreen

- De Atramentis Night Black

- Noodler's Zhivago

- Montblanc Racing Green (discontinued)

- De Atramentis Black Series Green

- De Atramentis Pine Green

- Sailor Tokiwa Matsu (Sailor seasonal ink from Winter, 2010 discontinued)

- Sailor Epinard

- Private Reserve Avacado (Yeah, I know it's spelled wrong. Complain to the folks at Private Reserve)

- Sailor Suzuran Green (Kobe ink series #28, only available from Japan)

- De Atramentis Green Tea

- J. Herbin Vert Empire

- Diamine Umber

- Sailor Rikyu Cha (Sailor seasonal ink from Summer, 2010 discontinued)

- Diamine Racing Green (Missing-Pen exclusive)

- Noodler's El Lawrence (UK series)

- Noodler's Brooklyn Brawn (Art Brown exclusive)

- Noodler's Burma Road Brown (V-Mail series)

- Noodler's Army Green

- Stipula Verde Muschiato

- Rohrer & Klingner Alt Goldgrün

- De Atramentis Sahara Grey

- De Atramentis Olivgrün

- Sailor Waka Uguisu (Sailor seasonal ink from Spring, 2010 discontinued

- Pilot Iroshizuku Chiku Rin

 

Of the thirty inks presented in this comparison, I have bottles of twelve. I am grateful to FPN members dcpritch, reprieve, and drifting for kindly supplying samples of several others, including some which are discontinued and difficult to obtain.The remaining inks were purchased as samples from the Goulet Pen Company. I would also like to add a special thanks to dcpritch for the loan of his Sailor 1911 with a custom 1.3mm stub nib; that pen allowed me to have a nice range of nib widths to use for the writing samples.

 

Figures1,2,3: Large writing samples

Samples are written on Rhodia 80 gsm paper with Sailor 1911 music nib reground by Mike Masuyama to a luscious 1.3mm stub. Figures at the end of each line are made by a vintage Sheaffer Balance with a flex nib.

 

NOTE: All of the following swab samples are done on HP 32# Presentation Paper .

 

Figure 4: Swab blocks

Colors are reasonably accurate, except that Noodler's Army Green and Diamine Racing Green both appear browner on the scan than they are in reality. I attempted to adjust the color in Photoshop but that threw everything else off so I decided to leave well enough alone. The writing samples above and in Part 2 are more accurate.

 

 

Figure 5: Swab squiggles

Same brown shift issues with Army Green and Diamine Racing Green that appears in Figure 4.

 

 

Figure 6: Swab1-2-3 passes

The top line is one pass, second line is two passes, and third line is three passes. Same brown shift issues with Army Green and Diamine Racing Green as seen in the other swab images.

 

Edited February 24, 2012 by geoduc

[Fabienne]

SPECTACULAR! What a great resource. Thank you for taking this kind of time.

[kathleen]

GREAT REVIEW! I LOVE USING GREEN INK. When I finish using my current two greens, Noodlers Forest and Diamine Sherwood Green, I will refer to this review before purchasing another green. Thanks, so much for this wonderful reference. I like the Diamine Green Black as shown here, it would be very suitable for business, and for personal correspondence I might choose one of the brighter greens like DeAtramentis Pine Green.

[reprieve]

This is such a fantastic resource! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

[The Good Captain]

This is brilliant - well done and thanks!

[brunico]

geoduc, wow, thank you!

 

Yellow-leaning greens are my favourite colour group for inks. From a bright chartreuse good for markup through the complex and ambiguous murky olive colours to the vegetal subtlety of my daily Noodler's Zhivago. All wonderful, all wonderful...

[saintsimon]

 

What a pity, that Sailor Miruai is no longer available.

[reprieve]

What a pity, that Sailor Miruai is no longer available.

 

Miruai is one of my favorites. I do have one bottle, and I use it sparingly (slowly) as it is so dear. Unfortunately, some of the best inks I have run across have been the Sailor Limited inks; I wish at least some of them would be added into their regular lineup.

[Chrissy]

Thank you Geoduc

 

That is a great wealth of interesting and valuable information. I'm a fan of green inks

[SamCapote]

WOW, this is just amazing. What a great resource. This is one of those topics that I make sure to save offline. Thanks so much for all the time you spent doing this and organizing it by shade. Just a remarkable piece of work.

[Laura N]

This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you for the effort you put into this. What a great resource.

[kcoen52]

Perfect! Wish I would have seen this before trying to pick out my first green ink. Luckily I did make a great choice and love my Sailor Epinard (looks just like your examples)

[GemMayhem]

Thank you, thank you! What an incredible amount of work and a valuable resource. Thank you!!

[IWantThat]

Fantastic resource I thank you from the bottom of my wallet!

[mhosea]

Awesome work.

 

Something seems off with Noodler's Army Green. I think mine's almost the same color as PR Avocado. Will try to do a couple of swabs of the two together.

[geoduc]

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. I can honestly say that I now fully appreciate the work dcpritch put into his sepia review! I can also say that I'm really, really tired of cleaning pens :blink: After everything I've learned here on FPN, it's nice to be able to give something back.

 

 

GREAT REVIEW! I LOVE USING GREEN INK. When I finish using my current two greens, Noodlers Forest and Diamine Sherwood Green, I will refer to this review before purchasing another green. Thanks, so much for this wonderful reference. I like the Diamine Green Black as shown here, it would be very suitable for business, and for personal correspondence I might choose one of the brighter greens like DeAtramentis Pine Green.

 

Pine Green is a nice color, but it was one of the wettest inks out of the whole group. I would definitely suggest trying a sample first.

 

 

What a pity, that Sailor Miruai is no longer available.

 

Miruai is one of my favorites. I do have one bottle, and I use it sparingly (slowly) as it is so dear. Unfortunately, some of the best inks I have run across have been the Sailor Limited inks; I wish at least some of them would be added into their regular lineup.

 

I love miruai as well - it's my favorite of the dark, murky colors. Thankfully I have a backup bottle stashed away for the future. I wasn't expecting to include so many Sailor inks when I started this project, but there are so many nice greens in their lineup that I couldn't leave them out. Miruai and tokiwa matsu are my favorites and I really fell in love with the sample of suzuran green. I sure wish that color was easily available.

[geoduc]

Awesome work.

 

Something seems off with Noodler's Army Green. I think mine's almost the same color as PR Avocado. Will try to do a couple of swabs of the two together.

 

 

Army Green gave me fits trying to get a decent scan, especially on the swabs. The actual color of the sample I have is between Burma Road Brown and Verde Muschiato. It definitely has more of an olive tone than PR Avacado.

 

I would like to see your swabs - please post scans or photos if possible.

[mhosea]

Awesome work.

 

Something seems off with Noodler's Army Green. I think mine's almost the same color as PR Avocado. Will try to do a couple of swabs of the two together.

 

 

Army Green gave me fits trying to get a decent scan, especially on the swabs. The actual color of the sample I have is between Burma Road Brown and Verde Muschiato. It definitely has more of an olive tone than PR Avacado.

 

I would like to see your swabs - please post scans or photos if possible.

 

Hmmm. I'm suspecting our samples of Noodler's Army Green are quite different:

 

[geoduc]

Awesome work.

 

Something seems off with Noodler's Army Green. I think mine's almost the same color as PR Avocado. Will try to do a couple of swabs of the two together.

 

 

Army Green gave me fits trying to get a decent scan, especially on the swabs. The actual color of the sample I have is between Burma Road Brown and Verde Muschiato. It definitely has more of an olive tone than PR Avacado.

 

I would like to see your swabs - please post scans or photos if possible.

 

Hmmm. I'm suspecting our samples of Noodler's Army Green are quite different:

 

 

Interesting. That doesn't look anything like the Army Green sample I have.

 

Mine came from another FPN member about six months ago, so it is possibly from an older production batch? I know that Noodler's inks can vary from batch to batch, but that's a pretty dramatic difference.

[mhosea]

Mine came from another FPN member about six months ago, so it is possibly from an older production batch? I know that Noodler's inks can vary from batch to batch, but that's a pretty dramatic difference.

 

FWIW, I bought my bottle mid-Dec 2011.