Jump to content

Parker Quink Black Gets a Bad Rap


davidtaylorjr

Recommended Posts

Picked up a bottle of Parker Quink Black on Amazon and it arrived today. I really don't understand the reviews complaining about it not being a true black, it looks just as black as Noodler's in my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 16
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • davidtaylorjr

    3

  • inkobsessed

    2

  • mhguda

    2

  • arcfide

    2

I haven't used Quink Black much, but one of my medium nibbed Sailors has been inked with it for a little while now and the ink comes out perfectly black. I like it. I also like that there isn't much sheen, so it isn't distracting. It doesn't appear grey at all (though it can at first, esp if the pen has just been cleaned with water).

 

Waterman inks get such love (and rightly so, after too long I finally bought their Serenity Blue and Intense Black and I like them a lot), whereas Quink gets panned quite a lot, even though their behaviours appear identical (incl their respective blue blacks) and are rumoured to indeed be exactly the same ink.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't mind using it (and their teal Blue Black too). Quink are still the only inks easily found to buy here - the office supply chain has them - so they were my first inks. I think of them fondly.

Will work for pens... :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not wild about Quink Black specifically because if I want a black ink, it's not a rich enough black ink for me. Blue-black I'm fine with even if I don't use it a ton.

 

As for the other Quinks-among the blues I have a sample around here if anyone is interested in seeing it of the same text written side-by-side out of the same pen(an XF 51 Vac) that shows Quink Washable Blue and Waterman Serenity Blue are most definitely not the same ink. I have a love-hate relationship with Washable Blue, as it's possibly the safest/easiest to clean out ink out there(more so than even Waterman or Pelikan) thanks to how little dye it has in it. On the other hand, it's just too light/washed out for me. Permanent Blue, which isn't easy to find in the US, is a different story. I haven't done a side-by-side with the same pen, but I think it's a darker, richer blue than Waterman.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, davidtaylorjr said:

it looks just as black as Noodler's in my opinion

 

Actually, I'll go so far as to say that if you don't need the Bulletproofness, it's a *better* black than Noodler's Black. I really don't care much for Noodler's black at all. Almost every other black ink I've tried performed better than all the Noodler's black ink I've been able to get, at least in terms of color and nice look on the page (Noodler's Black is well behaved). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Uncial said:

I grew to hate it, I think,  because I associated it with school.

lol there it is!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, inspired by your praise, I went to test it in a few pens.... since I've got some spare bottles. Ugh. Maybe it's because of their age, but in my view the bad rap is totally reserved. A far cry from black.

a fountain pen is physics in action... Proud member of the SuperPinks

fpn_1425200643__fpn_1425160066__super_pi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a bottle of Parker Quink Black from 2000 (Made in China, ironically), and  a bottle of Noodler's Borealis Black bought just recently.  As far as my eye can tell, there is no difference in "blackness" between the two.    

 

The Quink Black, though, turns to bright blue color when paper it is written on is placed underwater.  Noodler's Borealis Black remains black, even when the paper it is written on is underwater.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, mhguda said:

Well, inspired by your praise, I went to test it in a few pens.... since I've got some spare bottles. Ugh. Maybe it's because of their age, but in my view the bad rap is totally reserved. A far cry from black.

It is my understanding that they changed the formula in the last few years so that may be the issue? But it is just as black as any other black ink I have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will admit that I have not seen this new formulation black Quink for sale here, actually the only one they seem to carry is blue black, which is not bad in my view, although I did prefer the - no longer available? - permanent blue. And I tried a Waterman intense black too, and that seemed just as bad, while I do remember that one as being nicely dark and, well, intensely black. So it may be my pens, or the paper (Kokuyo in a soft-ring B5 notebook, also my Brepols planner) that is giving me this disappointing run-in with the two black inks...

a fountain pen is physics in action... Proud member of the SuperPinks

fpn_1425200643__fpn_1425160066__super_pi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/8/2022 at 12:57 AM, AmandaW said:

I don't mind using it (and their teal Blue Black too). Quink are still the only inks easily found to buy here - the office supply chain has them - so they were my first inks. I think of them fondly.

About 2 or 3 years ago Parker changed their Blue Black. Now it doesn’t turns into teal anymore and remains a nice really Blue Black after drying. 

 

Joop

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In this post Waterman Serenity Blue is compared to Parker Washable Blue, but you should compare it to Parker Permanent Blue because they look identical to me. I share the love-hate relation with Parker Washable Blue. Very nice colour, good writing properties and very readable for long text because of the low contrast on white paper. Nice ink very good to clean with indeed. The problem is the fading which keeps on going over the years until it’s nearly invisible. The only ink that fades even more in my experience is Pelikan 4001 Blue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I rather like it. It has never been totally black for me but I like it all the same. It seems to end up being a very dark bluish-greyish-black, which I find quite fetching! Moreover, it seems to play nicely with every pen I have put it in, no matter how temperamental.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you check a chroma on Parker Quink Black, you will see the other colors in it. I like it for this reason: it is a warm black with some other shades of blue and purple (even yellow). It's very different from my Noodler's Heart of Darkness (when I want a permanent rich black). And my Quink Black has worked in any/all pens (not true of my Noodler's).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Both Waterman Black and Parker Quink Black seem to use the same dye-pattern in their inks, and could even be based on or be the same formula. Because of the relatively unique dye-combination, I find it to be a relatively neat black ink, and I especially like the subdued color that it has on more absorbent paper compared to some black inks that don't interact with such poor paper as well. However, many people don't like blacks that can shade, and these definitely can on many paper types. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Most Contributions

    1. amberleadavis
      amberleadavis
      43844
    2. PAKMAN
      PAKMAN
      33494
    3. Ghost Plane
      Ghost Plane
      28220
    4. inkstainedruth
      inkstainedruth
      26624
    5. jar
      jar
      26101
  • Upcoming Events

  • Blog Comments

    • Shanghai Knife Dude
      I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China.  With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters.  Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 
    • A Smug Dill
      It is the reason why I'm so keen on the idea of a personal library — of pens, nibs, inks, paper products, etc. — and spent so much money, as well as time and effort, to “build” it for myself (because I can't simply remember everything, especially as I'm getting older fast) and my wife, so that we can “know”; and, instead of just disposing of what displeased us, or even just not good enough to be “given the time of day” against competition from >500 other pens and >500 other inks for our at
    • adamselene
      Agreed.  And I think it’s good to be aware of this early on and think about at the point of buying rather than rationalizing a purchase..
    • A Smug Dill
      Alas, one cannot know “good” without some idea of “bad” against which to contrast; and, as one of my former bosses (back when I was in my twenties) used to say, “on the scale of good to bad…”, it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy. Whereas subjectively acceptable (or tolerable) and unacceptable may well be a dichotomy to someone, and finding whether the threshold or cusp between them lies takes experiencing many degrees of less-than-ideal, especially if the decision is somehow influenced by factors o
    • adamselene
      I got my first real fountain pen on my 60th birthday and many hundreds of pens later I’ve often thought of what I should’ve known in the beginning. I have many pens, the majority of which have some objectionable feature. If they are too delicate, or can’t be posted, or they are too precious to face losing , still they are users, but only in very limited environments..  I have a big disliking for pens that have the cap jump into the air and fly off. I object to Pens that dry out, or leave blobs o
  • Chatbox

    You don't have permission to chat.
    Load More
  • Files






×
×
  • Create New...