Your Five Must Have Inks

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

Which five inks do you have in your collection, which you would prefer to always have a bottle of? 

Note : This question was not intended to vex anyone with more than  Five Must-Haves 😁.

[nibtip]

Montblanc Red Fox,

Pelikan 4001 BB,

Robert Oster Sydney darling harbour,

Kyo iro Higashiyama,

Kyo no oto Aonibi.

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

Just now, nibtip said:

Montblanc Red Fox,

Isn't that an LE?

 

[nibtip]

Yes, but I have 2 bottles.

[Frank C]

Every time I think that I have five favorite inks, another one comes along and somebody gets kicked off the list. Having said that, for many years now, Pilot Blue Black has been my most used ink. I buy 350mL. bottles of it on Amazon. I use this ink at work. It is dark enough to photocopy well and it works well on cheap copy paper, the source of all forms at the hospital. I have noticed that it feathers horribly on my most recent order of checks from the bank; they must be using some really cheap recycled paper. 

 

Lately, I've been using Montblanc Permanent Blue and Permanent Black quite a bit. They work well in the Montblanc Calligraphy 149 pen. 

 

Platinum Carbon Black is another must-have. It is waterproof, fade-proof, smear-proof, highlighter-proof, and archival. When I need those qualities in an ink, there aren't many choices. I tend to use it in Nakaya pens. 

 

That's four inks in the blue, black, and blue-black realm. Boring. 

 

My last must-have, which hasn't been made for many years now, is Sheaffer Peacock Blue. My mother, who will be 99 in July, always used Peacock Blue in her Parker 51, which was a gift from her father. I have laid in quite a supply of it; I won't ever run out. 

[gmax]

Parker Quink BB (new formula)

Montblanc Emerald

Irishizuku ama iro

Iroshizuku yama budo

Callifolio Inti

[I-am-not-really-here]

Sheaffer Persian Rose

Sheaffer Melon Red

Sheaffer Lavender

Sheaffer King's Gold

Rohrer & Klingner Solferino

 

 

 

[vannesspen]

it changes often but right now....Shaeffer turquoise, Akkerman 28, Taccia blue jeans, J Herbin Rose cyclamen, Callifolio Gris de Payne

[jandrew]

 

One my 'must haves' lately is a Blue Black mix (I'm creatively calling BB#1), but that means the four constituent inks (kyo no oto ochieguriiro, edelstein topaz, franklin christoph midnight emerald, and diamine syrah) are must haves (none of which I would consider 'must haves' on their own) and there goes my 5 ink allotment  

[VillersCotterets]

1. Parker Quink washable blue
   For pen testing and restoration, I never write with it
2. Diamine Ancient Copper
   Favorite red, one always needs a red to make corrections and annotations and this one feels always right
3. Sailor Jentle Yama-dori
   Because its hue perfectly match the Life notebooks I use all the time

Honestly, I don't have any number 4 and 5 because my tastes of inks never stabilised in decades. What I like today, I will likely be tired of in a few months. For instance, I hated blue inks and avoid them as much I could but, in the last months, I bought a vast palette of blue inks, from light blue to blue-black.

 

[peroride]

• A Waterman blue or Quink
• Herbin Perle Noire
• Aurora Black
• Sailor Souboku
• A KWZ iron gall

 

All mixed up in an Akkerman bottle 

[inkstainedruth]

This is a toughie.  Trying to limit it to five is really tough.

Okay, in no particular order:

Noodler's Baltimore Canyon Blue (which may be an LE ink) -- bright blue that is brighter and more water resistant than Noodler's Liberty's Elysium; and it's a nicer color (less eye-searing) and doesn't have the feathering issues of Noodler's Bay State Blue.

KWZI IG Violet #3 -- I like IG inks, and this one is drop dead gorgeous (although I've recently discovered KWZI IG Blue #2, which is softer and more of a blue violet color.

Vintage Skrip Peacock -- I'm lucky in that I scored a 3/4 pint bottle in an antiques mall a few years ago, so I have enough of the stuff to last a lifetime, even after I've given some away.  For those who aren't so lucky, Diamine Turquoise is a pretty good substitute.

Noodler's Kung Te Cheng.  Yes, it gets cloggy, and yes, the stuff spilled on my bathroom floor will NEVER come out.  But the color is amazing, and it is waterproof, UV resistant and my old bank didn't blink twice at it passing for blue ink when I was signing checks with it.

Waterman Mysterious Blue -- a little teal-leaning a blue-black for my taste, and not remotely water resistant.  But safe for vintage pens.

De Atramentis Red Roses (scented) -- this is a beautiful dark magenta/red-violet, depending on the paper.  And -- unlike some of the other De Atramentis scented inks, it's smells GLORIOUS.  Exactly like what I expect heirloom roses to smell like.  I have TWO backup bottles of it.

 

But this is so hard, because I don't have any green (leaning more to the slightly yellow medium-toned greens rather than the teal-green ones) or brown (sepia toned rather than red-leaning) inks on this list.  I don't have any dark blues and non-teal blue blacks, I don't have a real red, or a "true" pink listed above (although I really like them), and I don't have a black (I don't use black ink much, but there are times when black is neccessary, and my go to inks there are Noodler's Heart of Darkness for waterproofness and Iroshizuku Take-sumi for being odd and interesting looking on the page).  I also don't have any of the really oddball inks that make like interesting on the list: KWZI IG Mandarin Orange (which oxidizes to a light brown); and Noodler's El Lawrence (which, after seeing a review of it left me going "That is one weird-ass color...." over and over, but kept looking at it (and while not remotely a black ink, my old bank never lifted an eyebrow over).  I also don't have any of the super sheen inks (some are quite interesting) or any of the shimmer inks on the list -- although I would consider some of them "must haves" as well.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[I-am-not-really-here]

A CMYK set + Dilution fluid would run the color palette but I've already answered.

[ParramattaPaul]

My list is simple and straight forward.  Four are Diamine inks with Tropical Green being the odd one out.  The other three are blues; Oxford, Regency, and Tudor.  The remaining choice is Kingfisher Blue from Blackbird Inks. Kingfisher Blue rivals Oxford Blue for my most

 favourite ink.

 

I have to add a thank you to the OP for asking this question, and as a consequence, reminding me I need to refill a pen with Tudor Blue.  Thank you.

[lgsoltek]

R&K Solferino 

Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji

KWZ Ink Grapefruit

Sailor Yodaki

Sailor Souten

[A Smug Dill]

1. Platinum Carbon Black is the no-brainer #1 for me, for the reasons @Frank C covered above. Its singular ‘shortcoming’, if one wants to call it that, is that it is apt to spread, feather, and/or bleed-through ever-so-slightly more than Sailor Kiwaguro on some type of papers; but while I can choose to control that by using a finer nib, I can't stop Sailor Kiwaguro and other fountain pen compatible black pigment inks from shedding colour when soaked. That makes it the king of several black pigment inks I have tried; and one could always use (or may always need) a black ink.
2. Platinum Blue-Black is the representative iron-gall ink for me, even though it is not as heavy in iron-gall content as Diamine Registrar's Ink or ESS Registrars Ink. I love that it is richly blue in colour and quite readily sheens red, without being a lightweight or ‘pretend’ iron-gall ink.
3. Sailor Seiboku is the other pigment ink I'd choose for its near-total waterproofness and permanence. I like the colour of Souboku slightly more, but given I have already listed PCB and PBB above, going for something lighter and slightly more teal-leaning makes sense to me if I don't have room enough in a shortlist of five inks to keep both Seiboku and Souboku.
   » This, in turn, pushes the sheeny teal-blue Diamine Jalur Gemilang off the shortlist, even though I like that ink very much; and, to be fair, I don't use DJG that often in practice.
4. A brown ink is the other must-have for me. I prefer Platinum Classic Ink Khaki Black (which is an iron-gall ink) to Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz, even though it is of the latter I have multiple new bottles — fifteen, in fact, after having given away a couple — in reserve. However, at a pinch, many other somewhat water-resistant cool brown inks would be acceptable substitutes; or even Sailor Shikiori Rikyucha, which presents differently on different types of paper, and could be anywhere between brown and olive green in colour.
5. The last one would have to be a well-behaved water-resistant ink that is purple, red, or green. (I'd love to pick an orange ink, but orange and water-resistant do not seem to go together. I'm still waiting on my order of a bottle of Rohrer & Klingner SketchInk Carmen to arrive, to see whether the orange pigment ink is well-behaved.) I can't decide on this easily, not at the moment; but for now I'm inclined to pick another Platinum Classic Ink — either Lavender Black or Cassis Black.

 

See also:

 

[Maurizio]

Platinum Carbon Black

Pilot Black

Noodler's Blue 

Rohrer and Klinger Sepia

Diamine Poppy Red

 

 

Other Favorites:

Noodler’s Apache Sunset

Noodler’s Sequoia 

Pelikan Brilliant Green

 

[JakobS]

Diamine Umber

KWZ IG Green Gold

J Herbin Bleu Pervenche

Diamine Tyrian Purple

KWZ Brown Pink

 

or

 

Diamine Umber

KWZ IG Green Gold

Diamine Macassar

Diamine Safari

Diamine Monaco Red

 

or

 

Diamine Umber

KWZ IG Green Gold

KWZ IGL Aztec Gold

Diamine Chocolate

Abraxas Grass Green

 

or

 

Diamine Umber

KWZ IG Green Gold

KWZ  IG Turquoise 

KWZ Baltic Memories

Diamine Woodland Green

 

Hmmm....doesn’t look like it’s possible for me....maybe top 25?

 

 

[VivaTerlingua]

this was really tough

 

Sailor Souboku

Akkerman van Vermeer Steenrood

Sailor Kingdom Note Zan’ya

Sailor Manyo Yamabuki

J. Herbin Vert Empire

[chromantic]

Once I focused on "must have", it was easy: Kana-cho Midnight, Cross Violet and Diamine Macassar.

Why these? Green sheen.