Waterman Mysterious Blue

[Gazcom]

This is one of the first ink I bought. I was looking for a good blue black ink, just to have something different from the usual cartdridge available Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue, Black, and Blue Black. Waterman's Mysterious Blue revealed to be something totally different in a pleasant way.

 

 

Mysterious Blue is a strange ink, when wet appears to be a beautiful dark blue which turns to a lighter and with a touch of green tone after dried (difference is very consistent if you leave a considerable ammount of times) equally beautiful.
The flow is consistent and behaves well on every paper ( I noticed a little feathering and bleedthrough on cheap copy paper). Shading is always noticeable on every kind of paper, and is absolutely impressive for a "supposed to be blue - black " ink. The colour is absolutely work appropriate, no one is going to look at you strangely if you use it to sign your professional papers. This is not a waterproof ink, it has some hints of water resistance, but it's really close to none. Even if this ink has a good flow, this ink has not long drying times, just 5 sec for normal copy paper and 10 sec for tracing paper, so if you're left handed and you're reading this review, yes, this can be an option for you.

For those who likes sheeny ink (like me), I've noticed a relly good magenta sheen on tracing paper which I've never seen before this test.

Another interesting fact about this ink is that, in my opinion, it's really close to some higher price range inks (like limited edition Mont Blanc Blue Hour / Twilight Blue) but at a third of the cost. I've got both, I love MB Blue Hour, it's one of the my favourite inks for several reasons, but as long as I have Waterman's Mysterious Blue, I don't see any reason to waste it (or to buy it if you're looking for it).

 

In the end, is this ink worth it?

Yes, this ink, at this price (I bought it for 5€ a 50 ml bottle, but I would accept to buy it for 8€-9€ as well) has a great value. Do not expect a classic Blue Black, because in my opinion this is not a Blue Black, is something between a Dark Blue and a Teal ink if I've to say, but is indeed something you're not going to find in standard Pelikan 4001 ink cartridges. It's a good ink for beginner's, for work, for drawing and for any purpose you can find. So if in doubt, buy it, it's worth a try.

 

COPY PAPER

SCHIZZA & STRAPPA PAPER

 

TRACING PAPER

CROMATOGRAPHY

Please refer at the cromatography for the ammount of green in this ink, the scans really do not bring out how much the ink turns on the green side after dried.

 

INKDROP

 

[Tas]

Lovely review.

 

This was one of my first inks too and it lay ignored for years as I couldn't associate Blue Black with it. It's not blue black by any stretch of the imagination. What it is though is a very handsome ink that has a some complexity and plays well with every pen I've used it in.

 

I think it's "new" name, Mysterious Blue suits it .

[lapis]

Good review and I find it nice to see what you think about it.

It looks pretty dark, so to say in the direction of a dark blue, even with a touch of green. My bottle is old but still hasn't changed its color over the years and that's why I never use it. It's still by no means a dark blue -- let alone a blue-black -- but for sure a fainted turquoise-grey.

 

Mike

[visvamitra]

A classic. I've never liked this ink but the review is enjoyable

[lgsoltek]

Montblanc Blue Hour Twilight Blue looks almost exactly the same as this!

[carlos.q]

Excellent review of an often underestimated ink.

[AndyYNWA]

A very underrated ink. I think I'll get a bottle when my sample is done.

[lapis]

"Sample is done" as in when the roast beef is done?

 

[jmccarty3]

Mysterious Blue has the distinction of being the ink that Richard Binder recommends as being trouble-free in both vintage and modern pens. It does seem to be a safe choice, but I'm just not crazy about the green component, which appears when the initial blue fades on drying. It certainly behaves well--I just wish it could make up its mind about what it wants to be.

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the review, which show WMB as being more water resistant than I remembered (or gave it credit for having). It's not my favorite blue-black, being a little more teal/green than I like -- on some paper it really looks more green than blue (I guess that's the "mysterious" part of the name. . But I have also run it in a 1937 Parker Vacumatic Junior (Red Shadow Wave, lockdown filler) for over 14 months now of continuous rotation without even flushing the nib. I just refill the pen when it runs dry, or if I think I'm likely to be going someplace where it wouldn't be easy to bring a refill with me.

I just used the pen -- and the ink in it -- this morning for my daily journal. I had to pick up a back-up bottle recently, when I realized that the first one was getting a bit low (not out, yet -- but certainly below the halfway point...). For an ink where I'm not 100% sold on either the color or the water resistance, that says a lot.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[_R_]

Nice review.

 

I excavated a pack of long cartridges of Mysterious Blue a couple of weeks ago, and had forgotten how green it was. With a B nib, or a broad italic, it's not nearly as annoying (to my eyes et least) as with an F or a fine italic, as I find it has nice shading, but with finer nibs I think it's just too pale to be a satisfying blue-black.

 

Other than that, I have also found it to be very well-behaved in a variety of pens on a variety of papers.

[bob_hayden]

Is this the ink formerly known as "blue-black"? I have a sample of that from long ago and it matches what I see in the first photo, which is greener than what I see in the other photos. The latter look like more of a slate blue on my monitor.

 

I am thinking back to c.1960 when the "black" inks I could find were grey or a darkish blue-black. With that passing for black, it was not clear what an ink called "blue-black" should be. They tended to vary quite a bit from brand to brand, with an emphasis on grey and blue-grey.

 

Today it is normal for black ink to look black, and blue-black is often just that. This Waterman ink seems to be a holdover from earlier days when blue-black was searching for an identity, though it probably represents the greenest definition. I wish Waterman had updated their colors rather than the names;-) Sheaffer and Parker now have black and blue-black inks that better match their name.

[Erik Dalton]

Sometimes i like this stuff, sometimes I really dislike it. I lean more toward Serenity Blue. Both are well behaved inks and in those times that i use the Mysterious blue, it it performs flawlessly as long as you can be comfortable with the teal color. These two are my go to inks for my P-51's. They never give me a problem, and clean up really easily.

Thank you for the thorough review. It was well done and made me think i should be using this stuff a little more.

[Old_Inkyhand]

I have a love-hate relationship with this ink as well. It was the very first ink I bought consciously in order to escape from the royal blues. I believe that the ink was reformulated, because now I experience a lot of fading issues and colour changes. I stopped using Mysterious Blue due to these problems.

[kronos77]

What is a blue-black ink?

 

I believe the term blue-black refers to a color change, not a color. Otherwise it would be called bluish-black or blackish-blue. Because of the iron gall content, for waterproofing, the ink would change color when exposed to the air, from blue to black. Samples of old letters written with blue-black ink that I have seen appear black or often greenish-black, but I haven't seen all that many.

 

For some reason, the term has come to mean a dark blue ink.

 

As I am not an ink historian, correct me if I am wrong, please.

[bob_hayden]

How do you know the letters were written with blue-black ink?

 

I think iron gall ink goes back over 1000 years, and that Mozart wrote letters in inks of many colors. Were those all iron gall inks? (I do have some "Aristotle" iron gall ink from a company that makes such inks in a nuber of colors, though they tend to be rather muddy -- not much like Private Reserve colors!-)

 

Herbin was producing inks before Mozart's time. Were those iron gall inks?

 

Those are just rhetorical questions and not an attempt to argue.

 

I do think that the default iron gall ink was a sort of blue-black color and I had suspected that when fountain pens were a novelty, and required dye-based inks to function, blue-black ink was an attempt to reproduce the color folks were accustomed to -- rather like the station wagons of the early 1950s that were made of steel painted to look like wood because earlier models had been made of wood.

[antichresis]

Not to derail the thread but would anyone know an(other) ink that resembles the bottom three photos?

That dusky blue-grey without the cast of green present in the header photo? Bleu Nuit?

[AndyYNWA]

Not to derail the thread but would anyone know an(other) ink that resembles the bottom three photos?

 

That dusky blue-grey without the cast of green present in the header photo? Bleu Nuit?

Iroshizuku Shin-kai maybe...

[bob_hayden]

Not to derail the thread but would anyone know an(other) ink that resembles the bottom three photos?

 

That dusky blue-grey without the cast of green present in the header photo? Bleu Nuit?

 

Jinhao Blue has a touch of grey and is quite inexpensive. Elsewhere at FPN Amberlea Davis noted a favorite ink of hers that appeared a sort of slate blue. Sorry but I do not remember the name of the ink nor the thread where she posted her comment. However, I do think there is a thread here on blue-black inks but I can't find it this morning. A thread on blue ink might help as well.

 

Also see

 

http://www.jetpens.com/blog/blue-black-fountain-pen-ink-comparison/pt/767

[Pravda]

This ink has intrigued me for some time now. I wonder if its green tinge is lighter than that of the MB Blue Hour (i.e more blue than green) if so I'd love to try it.

 

It appears in the reviews to be a dusty turquoise almost, kind of like something I have mixed a while back and really been seeking to replicate since.