Gulf Blue - Graf Von Faber-Castell

[visvamitra]

Graf von Faber-Castell was founded in 1761 and developed into the major manufacturer of wood-cased pencils. With time they started to offer much broader range of products. Few years ago company's introduced six inks. Last year they've added three new colors to the line. This year they've done the same. Three new GvFC colors hit the shelves.

Graf von Faber-Castell joined forces with world-famous designer Kera Till. The collaboration resulted in new, fresh colors Gulf Blue is part of Kera Till's Colour Concept for Graf von Faber-Castell.

The ink is moderately saturated but legible in all conditions. The flow is smooth and problem-free. It feels quite wet, even in drier pens and drying times are reasonable.

Overall impression - acceptable. Probably, I'll even use all carts that I bought.

Drops of ink on kitchen towel

Software ID

Color range

Field Notes, Faggionato Petrarque, medium nib

Copy paper, Chinese MB inspired FP, medium nib

La Couronne du Comte invoice paper, Chinese MB inspired FP, medium nib

Water resistance

[Tweel]

It looks like a nice cornflower blue.

[roklpokl]

Thanks for another great review visvamitra. Looks like a paler version of Sailor Souten.

[lapis]

Or a paler, bluer version of South Seas Blue.

[chromantic]

​Aargh! Another ink to try. A pretty enough blue but the kicker is that pale lavender sheen; looks good on the copy paper, too, always a plus. Not showing up on ebay yet.

[Barkingpig]

The Graf Von Faber Castell website is where I found the other colors available earlier this Spring. I just checked & it shows this Gulf Blue available in both bottle & carts.

 

(www.graf-von-faber-castell.com) I had previously ordered from outside the US to find colors not available from the "usual suspects" here in the US; I was very happy to discover there "Official Website" offered on line purchase & after shopping there can say it was an excellent experience.

[chromantic]

Thanks so much, Barkingpig! Ordered a pack of Gulf Blue and, what the heck, threw in Moss Green, too. Price for the carts is a very reasonable $3.50/pack.

[Barkingpig]

I am glad the information was useful to you.

 

I hate reading about "new" products, only to find they are not yet available for sale! Today, was a newly introduced ink from one of the "BIG Names," listed on EBAY, as a "newly released ink" from the company (of which the Seller was an "authorised retailer,") yet a "look see" @ the "US Official Website," showed NO mention of the ink. I know better than to call & ask about the ink because they will merely tell me they don't know anything about it, despite one of their "authorised retailers," offering it for sale on EBAY. I will always wonder where it came from, if they had it to sell?

 

New inks are exciting to hear & read about, often to purchase & use; why wouldn't the makers of same want to make it easy to purchase? I appreciated GVFC making it so.

[Uncial]

It looks very similar to ST Duponts turquoise which is more pale blue than it's name.

[inkstainedruth]

Interesting color. It looks a bit better on the cream paper (the La Courenne invoice stuff). But I fear it will be a bit pale overall.

Thanks for the review.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[senzen]

Looks really nice, thanks for the review!

Edited May 3, 2018 by pseudo88

[Honeybadgers]

nothing jumps out at me that screams "premium ink price"

 

I think colorverse has been nailing the premium market recently. I got string/brane, and string is AMAZING.

[chromantic]

My cartridges arrived and I'm very disappointed.

 

The color is a completely different shade of blue from what vis' review shows (and the color on the box), it's more of a cornflower color. The Reply to this topic toolbar provides a perfect example of the difference: the blue of the undo button is close to what the ink should look like while the color I'm getting is more like the little floppy discs on the My Media button.

 

I've tried it in two pens with the same results.

[Intensity]

 

I think colorverse has been nailing the premium market recently. I got string/brane, and string is AMAZING.

Indeed! String+Brane are at the top of my list of Colorverse inks to get, as well as Photon+Gluon. I wish I could get more Brane than String though.

[chromantic]

My cartridges arrived and I'm very disappointed.

 

The color is a completely different shade of blue from what vis' review shows (and the color on the box), it's more of a cornflower color. The Reply to this topic toolbar provides a perfect example of the difference: the blue of the undo button is close to what the ink should look like while the color I'm getting is more like the little floppy discs on the My Media button.

 

I've tried it in two pens with the same results.

 

Bust my britches, I take it all back.

 

I happened to check the sample of the 1st pen again; it was just a couple words/squiggles but I felt it was having flow issues so I switched it to the Jinhao but, looking at the sample again, the color did look closer to the review color. Turns out the Jinhao, which I thought I'd thoroughly flushed Grey Plum from, actually wasn't and the GP was adulterating the color to produce the cornflower shade.

 

Trying it in a 3rd (definitely clean) pen, I'm getting exactly the color I was expecting from the review and couldn't be more pleased. A very pleasant color, contrast-y enough to be readable and pretty well-behaved, though I did notice some slight bleed spots towards the edge of the page, where I might have been pressing harder.

[DrDebG]

Has anyone notice any smearing issues with this ink? Some of the earlier GvFC inks smear badly after drying particularly on Tomoe River or Rhodia papers. I decided not to purchase a bottle of Violet Blue because of the smearing issues. Have you seen this with Gulf Blue?

[chromantic]

It's 9:15 now and I'm getting no smearing on the paragraph I wrote with the new pen in a BnR notebook around 5:30-6:00. (None on the couple of lines on a Blue Sky SmartNotes pad, either.)

 

No smearing with a line of Moss Green written at the same time on the BnR, and just tried Deep Sea Green on both pads, no smearing once fully dry, 30 secs or so.

[JulieParadise]

Necro-posting is such an ugly term ... I would like to add (although late to the game) my impression of this ink here as I happened to take some snapshots today.

 

 

[Intensity]

It seems to have those lavender-pink-blue transitions like Troublemaker Milky Ocean. I've just ordered 4 more GvFC inks and now feel a bit sad I didn't include Gulf Blue.

[Intensity]

I'm up to 10 GvFC inks now, as I like them a lot. Did get Gulf Blue as well. But highly surprising to me was the fact that both Gulf Blue and Turquoise FEATHER on good paper. They feather on both Rhodia and Clairefontaine... It was the last thing I expected to see, because I hadn't seen my other GvFC inks behave that way before. Violet Blue is also a bit feathery on those papers, though to a lesser extent. I've seen reviews stating that those inks don't feather, but perhaps particularly feathering-resistant paper was used for those tests.