Montblanc Permanent Black

[Lloyd]

I'm a noob, so bear with me for a sec. I have a Mont Blanc Gaius Maecenas which I use daily. I like the pen and it always worked very well. Before I used mystery black ink and I was very happy with it. Now recently I bought permanent black, and it's horrible. The ink doesn't seem to flow properly, and it looks pretty poor, as if constantly writing with an almost empty pen. Now my question is what should I do? Throw away the ink and go back to the mystery black? Or maybe dilute the ink somewhat, but with what. Or should I get the pen looked at and maybe get a new nib? My current nib says AU750. Any ideas?

Thoroughly clean out the pen and refill it with another ink. If it works, then you know it's a problem with the ink. Contact MontBlanc customer service to report it.

[Tom Kellie]

I have been using Montblancs Permanet Black in an 149 XF and it is exquisite. It is a deep black equal only to Kaweco Black Perl and Faber-Castell TG1.

It is unctuous and sharp even on cheap paper.

 

 

~ lupulcebun:

 

I'm very glad to know that Montblanc Permanent Black writes well in your 149.

It's an ink which I use in a sketch nib pen. Every day it lays down clear lines without any issues on the paper or in the pen itself.

Using watercolor washes with it has been problem-free.

Tom K.

[omarcenaro]

After using Montblanc Permanent Blue and loving that it does not bleed through on regular copy paper, I went and bought some Montblanc Permanent Black. It worked well and had no bleed through when compared to other inks but using the same pen and nib. No bleed through!

 

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Edited July 29, 2019 by Ozzy1

[Twister292]

I quite like this ink as well...flows well, dark and saturated, and behaves well for bleed/feather as well

[wpeterson]

Great review. I like the permanent black and will probably get a bottle

[Tas]

I loaded some into my Visconti Homo Sapiens the other day. I can't ever recall having a black ink in there. Writing with it now is like using a laser pen that burns crisp lines into the paper.

Mm mmmm.

[omarcenaro]

I loaded some into my Visconti Homo Sapiens the other day. I can't ever recall having a black ink in there. Writing with it now is like using a laser pen that burns crisp lines into the paper.

 

Mm mmmm.

I was totally blown away on how great the black and blue permanent ink behaved. Really has the best in not feathering, bleed through and its permanent.

[arcfide]

I've been using this permanent black for a while. I've used it on Tomoe River paper, Rhodia standard paper, and some other mid-grade but fairly heavyweight papers, mostly with a 149 Expression Nib.

 

My experience is that it's as bold and solid as Platinum Carbon Black or Sailor's black pigmented ink, without the maintenance involved with the pigmented inks. It has very good writing characteristics for me (meaning that it doesn't gush all over the place, but still has consistent flow). However, it will take a while to dry if you have a coated paper like Clairfontaine. On normal Rhodia paper, which is a little more absorbant, the dry times are under a minute. On Tomoe River or the like, where the ink won't absorb much, then the dry times can be very long.

 

The original post indicates that Noodler's Black is just as suitable and less expensive. I have to disagree there. I haven't found anything that performs as well with higher-quality paper other than the pigmented carbon-based inks. Specifically, nothing that lays down a truly black, solid line. My comparison inks are the Platinum Carbon Black and the Uniball Vision superinks, both of which are terrific blacks, IMO. I initially picked up a Noodler's Black because it has such a high reputation, but my experience with that ink was the most severe let-down. It's the only bottle of ink that I actually returned to the store. I've been a fan of other Noodler's inks, but in this case, the Noodler's Black just didn't lay down a solid black line at all on Tomoe River paper, and wasn't much better on Rhodia. It was tolerable on highly absorbant copy paper, but didn't have great definition to the lines. I tried a number of times to get it working, but the end result was a washed out, dusty, weak line of ink that couldn't even really be called black. This result was someone confirmed by someone who did a large swatch testing of a bunch of black inks on Tomoe River and found the same thing. So, at least for me, the performance of Noodler's Black isn't even close to the same as the MB Permanent Black or Platinum Carbon Black or the Sailor's stuff.