Are Lamy T52 (Blue, Blue/Black, and Black) inks wet or dry?

[InkyEd]

I've tried to search for this answer but had no luck.  Are the Lamy T52 inks considered to be wet, dry or in between?  And also is the Lamy 2000 fine pen considered to be a "wet" writer? 

 

My Lamy 2000 fine pen loaded with Lamy T52 blue ink really seems to produce a broad line and I'm wondering if that's natural. 

 

TIA, Ed

[arcfide]

Lamy 2000 nibs are notoriously broader than typical, and they are also very wet, IME. Lamy Blue I would consider a wet but unsaturated ink (washable blue). Lamy Black is fairly wet and fairly saturated in the bottles that I have of it, but still follows very much in the "trad black" vein. Lamy Blue Black is relatively dry, and a very grey-leaning blue black to my eyes. It has lots of shading, and I find that it writes with much less lubrication than the Lamy Black. 

[Mangrove Jack]

I bought the Lamy T52 Blue Black a few days ago to use in my Lamy Studio pen with a 1.1mm italic nib. This pen writes extremely well with Noodlers Black and Noodlers Bad Belted Kingfisher (blue black), both very saturated inks, despite it not having a particularly wet nib.

 

However, with Lamy Blue Black ink it tended to skip and felt rather dry. Strangely, the Lamy ink worked perfectly in my Noodlers Konrad pen with an EF nib, even on the very paper the Lamy skipped on. So funnily I have Noodlers ink in my Lamy pen and Lamy T52 Blue Black ink in my Noodlers pen 😁.

 

I consider the ink to be on the dry side and more blue grey than blue black. I like it and will be using it.

 

[InkyEd]

17 hours ago, arcfide said:

Lamy 2000 nibs are notoriously broader than typical, and they are also very wet, IME. Lamy Blue I would consider a wet but unsaturated ink (washable blue). Lamy Black is fairly wet and fairly saturated in the bottles that I have of it, but still follows very much in the "trad black" vein. Lamy Blue Black is relatively dry, and a very grey-leaning blue black to my eyes. It has lots of shading, and I find that it writes with much less lubrication than the Lamy Black. 

Well, that certainly confirms my experience.  I purchased all three of the above inks so at some point soon I'll unload the blue and fill with the blue/black and see how much difference that makes,  I'm sure some of my problem is that I'm currently using Staples multipurpose 20 lb (75 gsm) printer/copier paper.  I do have a pad of Rhodia paper on order that I hope will tame some of the apparent wetness and bleed through that I'm seeing now.  Thank you for your help. 

[InkyEd]

10 hours ago, Mangrove Jack said:

I bought the Lamy T52 Blue Black a few days ago to use in my Lamy Studio pen with a 1.1mm italic nib. This pen writes extremely well with Noodlers Black and Noodlers Bad Belted Kingfisher (blue black), both very saturated inks, despite it not having a particularly wet nib.

 

However, with Lamy Blue Black ink it tended to skip and felt rather dry. Strangely, the Lamy ink worked perfectly in my Noodlers Konrad pen with an EF nib, even on the very paper the Lamy skipped on. So funnily I have Noodlers ink in my Lamy pen and Lamy T52 Blue Black ink in my Noodlers pen 😁.

 

I consider the ink to be on the dry side and more blue grey than blue black. I like it and will be using it.

 

Thanks for this information.  Quite insightful.  As I read through the many threads I'm making a word document with bits and pieces of info on pens and inks to help me keep track of and remember relevant items that will help me in future selections of inks and pens.  I'm adding both your and Arcfide's comments to that doc.

[51ISH]

21 hours ago, InkyEd said:

I've tried to search for this answer but had no luck.  Are the Lamy T52 inks considered to be wet, dry or in between?  And also is the Lamy 2000 fine pen considered to be a "wet" writer? 

 

My Lamy 2000 fine pen loaded with Lamy T52 blue ink really seems to produce a broad line and I'm wondering if that's natural. 

 

TIA, Ed

 

It's been a while since I've been on this forum, so I may well be 'out of date' ...so feel free to take my 'advice' with a pinch of salt. However, I have a Lamy 2000 with a fine nib, and it writes like most of my 'wet' medium nibs 🙁 🤣 

 

From what I understand Lamy Blue is/was considered a 'dry ink'.  If you want to try another 'dry' ink I'd suggest Pelican Blue/Black which is also considered a 'dry ink' or was??   I'm not sure if they still do, but Lamy used to offer a 'nib swap' service provided your nib is 'serviceable', so you may want to drop them an email and ask if you can swop it for an EF.  (It has to be returned to the factory...or mine did about 8 years ago.)  I swopped my Medium nib for a Fine.... back then it took about 10 days...

[Bo Bo Olson]

Wider than typical if one is use to narrower than marked Japanese nibs.

Many start there in Japanese pens and forever complain that Western nibs are fat.....

When we who started with western....(outside of Waterman&Aurora), know Japanese nibs are too skinny for the marking.

Ever notice there is no B in Japanese nibs....well if there is they are only a M in western. Japanese nibs are designed for a tiny printed script.

Western for a 'wider' cursive script.

Modern western nibs seems to be wider than it use to be. But I don't 'know' modern Parker or Cross, in I don't use mine.

My '89 Pelikan 600 OBB is a half a width narrower than my modern 2013 1000 OBB. My 2016 Wolf in B is so fat its to me a BB**, and much wider than my '90's 146 OB.

**The fat end of tolerance....within tolerance/slop that every manufacture has,  is a Fat B=BB and a skinny B=M. 1/1,000 of an inch can't be seen buy us.

If you want more on tolerance...at the bottom.

 

I found Lamy to be on par with modern fatter MB and Pelikan.

My Persona is from 1990 so is not modern German wide. It is not a modern German pen.

In modern I use pre-1997 as for narrow, post for wide in Pelikan when they went over to a fatter double ball nib.

I gave away a modern Safari and a CPM-1 (to hook someone into fountain pens and they were nails) that seemed no wider than anything else......of course I was more into wide nibs than the skinny ones many strive to have.......(splitting hairs to whose EF is narrowest)... of course they have to use vivid monotone (boring) saturated inks.....in EF and narrower just don't show shading.....or not enough I can see it.

 

My 1.5 Joy seems to be close enough to real, real 1.5 wide to matter.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Ron Zorn tolerance...............or horseshoe close is as good as it gets.

Ron Zorn and Richard Binder visited the Sheaffer factory as it closed down.

Every company has it's very own  standard; usually for a good reason.

Parker makes or made a fatter nib than Sheaffer, so those who so wished or were so trained by their company of choice back in the day of One Man, One Pen.....(Chevy vs Ford)....to prevent a catastrophe....some Parker user, buying a Sheaffer for his pen of the decade. & vice versa. If Parker made a skinny nib like Sheaffer, why shouldn't a Parker fan not buy a Sheaffer pen...if they were the same width of nib. Such foolishness was avoided.

First you have to look at the Eras....Once Pelikan was narrower than both Parker and Sheaffer....Then in '98 Pelikan went over to fat blobby nibs....wider than Parker or Sheaffer. That was done so ball point users could use a fountain pen with out going through all that hassle of learning how to hold a fountain pen. And stiffer nibs that ball point users had a harder time springing or turning nibs into pretzels.

MB is also fatter now than it was in semi-vintage and vintage days.

And Japanese nibs are even narrower, than western vintage and semi-vintage days.

A Japanese poster said Sailor was the fattest Japanese nib, perhaps just a bit thinner  than pre 2010 Aurora (once the thinnest European nib. I haven't tested a newer Aurora nib, but that was the @ end of the Aurora semi-flex era.)

Japanese nibs are one or more widths narrower than modern Western nibs. They have to be in they are designed for a tiny printed script; not flowing cursive of western nibs.

There is a big gap between sizes of western and Japanese nibs. Those who start with Japanese pens always think of Western nibs as fat.

Those of us who started with Western nibs, know Japanese nibs as skinnier than marked size.

Japanese nibs ould well be 1/2 a width narrower than 'narrow'  Pelikan vintage or semi-vintage nibs......................I don't know if they are even narrower than that.  I had enough $ problems chasing German pens.

Three companies, using their own standards plus tolerance means even with in the company it is only approximate and when compared to another company it's oranges vs tangerines, in each company has it's very own standard. Then drop in Japanese narrow nibs.

Someone's F could be another's EF or M or so close measurement don't really matter. Call the others a real Skinny F or a real Fat F.

.....and the new number standard of 1.2-1.0-0.8 are just as off as the letter BB, B or M nib sizes are.

Even robot cut steel nibs from Lamy are off in constant width. (I did see the older larger machine....Goulet's vid, shows the smaller new one.)

There will be variance.....it is completely normal for three pens of the same width coming off the factory's line to be each a bit different.....and still be with in tolerance...skinny F, fat F, & normal F.

Tolerance is normal, in the AI's haven't taken over and removed slop.

IMO many people are too OCD and expect every F nib to be exactly the same, even if made from a different company, much less of different eras.

Those boring times are coming in the AI days, until then, enjoy a thick, regular and thin F................and the next company's F that has a different standard so as your normal company....will over lap what you consider 'normal in F vs M.

Nib width is either horseshoe or hand grenade close; only.

 

Sheaffer used a dial indicator nib gauge for measuring nib sizes. The nib was inserted into the gauge, and the size read off of the dial. A given size being nibs that fell within a given range. What is listed below were the ranges given on a gauge that I saw in the Sheaffer service center prior to being closed in March 2008.

Measurements are in thousandths of an inch.

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

*there was some overlap on the gauge. May be 0.035 - 0.050

[InkyEd]

22 hours ago, 51ISH said:

 

It's been a while since I've been on this forum, so I may well be 'out of date' ...so feel free to take my 'advice' with a pinch of salt. However, I have a Lamy 2000 with a fine nib, and it writes like most of my 'wet' medium nibs 🙁 🤣 

 

From what I understand Lamy Blue is/was considered a 'dry ink'.  If you want to try another 'dry' ink I'd suggest Pelican Blue/Black which is also considered a 'dry ink' or was??   I'm not sure if they still do, but Lamy used to offer a 'nib swap' service provided your nib is 'serviceable', so you may want to drop them an email and ask if you can swop it for an EF.  (It has to be returned to the factory...or mine did about 8 years ago.)  I swopped my Medium nib for a Fine.... back then it took about 10 days...

Part of my problem in judging the size of the lines laid down by this pen is that I haven't used a fountain pen since the mid 1950s so I'm now just starting to learn again what to expect from this pen.  I did my first writing with it a few days ago but the paper I had available for those tests wasn't the best choice for fountain pen ink.  Today a pad of Rhodia paper arrived and the pen looks much better and more like I expected on that paper.  I'm not as worried about the pen now as I was before.  I just need to write a lot more with it and different inks to start to gain the knowledge that comes from experience.

 

I've got some Lamy blueblack ink that I'm planing on trying next.

 

Thanks for your response and info. 

 

Ed

[InkyEd]

4 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Wider than typical if one is use to narrower than marked Japanese nibs.

Many start there in Japanese pens and forever complain that Western nibs are fat.....

When we who started with western....(outside of Waterman&Aurora), know Japanese nibs are too skinny for the marking.

Ever notice there is no B in Japanese nibs....well if there is they are only a M in western. Japanese nibs are designed for a tiny printed script.

Western for a 'wider' cursive script.

Modern western nibs seems to be wider than it use to be. But I don't 'know' modern Parker or Cross, in I don't use mine.

My '89 Pelikan 600 OBB is a half a width narrower than my modern 2013 1000 OBB. My 2016 Wolf in B is so fat its to me a BB**, and much wider than my '90's 146 OB.

**The fat end of tolerance....within tolerance/slop that every manufacture has,  is a Fat B=BB and a skinny B=M. 1/1,000 of an inch can't be seen buy us.

If you want more on tolerance...at the bottom.

 

I found Lamy to be on par with modern fatter MB and Pelikan.

My Persona is from 1990 so is not modern German wide. It is not a modern German pen.

In modern I use pre-1997 as for narrow, post for wide in Pelikan when they went over to a fatter double ball nib.

I gave away a modern Safari and a CPM-1 (to hook someone into fountain pens and they were nails) that seemed no wider than anything else......of course I was more into wide nibs than the skinny ones many strive to have.......(splitting hairs to whose EF is narrowest)... of course they have to use vivid monotone (boring) saturated inks.....in EF and narrower just don't show shading.....or not enough I can see it.

 

My 1.5 Joy seems to be close enough to real, real 1.5 wide to matter.

I had read these type descriptions before I ordered my Lamy fine and on Rhodia paper it looks about like what I was expecting.  And with those thoughts in mind I am thinking of ordering a Platinum and a Sailor pen in a few months to try their gold nibs, both in medium, and expecting that they might be similar in line width to the Lamy but perhaps varying in the type of shading they might produce. 

 

Thanks for all the information.

 

Ed

[51ISH]

12 minutes ago, InkyEd said:

Part of my problem in judging the size of the lines laid down by this pen is that I haven't used a fountain pen since the mid 1950s so I'm now just starting to learn again what to expect from this pen.  I did my first writing with it a few days ago but the paper I had available for those tests wasn't the best choice for fountain pen ink.  Today a pad of Rhodia paper arrived and the pen looks much better and more like I expected on that paper.  I'm not as worried about the pen now as I was before.  I just need to write a lot more with it and different inks to start to gain the knowledge that comes from experience.

 

I've got some Lamy blueblack ink that I'm planing on trying next.

 

Thanks for your response and info. 

 

Ed

 Well done you to rediscovering fountain pens for enjoyment after such a long time away! I thought I was doing well as my last contact with a fountain pen was in secondary school (11 - 16 yrs old) in the 1970's!!  Yes, to get good results (and enjoyment) you do need good paper,  I'm sure Rhodia is excellent but you can get good quality photocopying paper for a fraction of the cost while you are experimenting if that's a consideration. (Look for paper that is 90gsm) Or check out the 'Paper' section on this website.  Take some time to get to know your new pen...there's no need to 'panic'....you can always get the nib changed if later down the line you find it's not for you. Just a word of caution it's easy to get 'sucked in' to buying different inks...and more pens....Don't ask me how I know....🤣

[InkyEd]

5 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Ron Zorn tolerance...............or horseshoe close is as good as it gets.

 

Ron Zorn and Richard Binder visited the Sheaffer factory as it closed down.

 

Every company has it's very own  standard; usually for a good reason.

 

Parker makes or made a fatter nib than Sheaffer, so those who so wished or were so trained by their company of choice back in the day of One Man, One Pen.....(Chevy vs Ford)....to prevent a catastrophe....some Parker user, buying a Sheaffer for his pen of the decade. & vice versa. If Parker made a skinny nib like Sheaffer, why shouldn't a Parker fan not buy a Sheaffer pen...if they were the same width of nib. Such foolishness was avoided.

 

First you have to look at the Eras....Once Pelikan was narrower than both Parker and Sheaffer....Then in '98 Pelikan went over to fat blobby nibs....wider than Parker or Sheaffer. That was done so ball point users could use a fountain pen with out going through all that hassle of learning how to hold a fountain pen. And stiffer nibs that ball point users had a harder time springing or turning nibs into pretzels.

 

MB is also fatter now than it was in semi-vintage and vintage days.

 

And Japanese nibs are even narrower, than western vintage and semi-vintage days.

 

A Japanese poster said Sailor was the fattest Japanese nib, perhaps just a bit thinner  than pre 2010 Aurora (once the thinnest European nib. I haven't tested a newer Aurora nib, but that was the @ end of the Aurora semi-flex era.)

 

Japanese nibs are one or more widths narrower than modern Western nibs. They have to be in they are designed for a tiny printed script; not flowing cursive of western nibs.

 

There is a big gap between sizes of western and Japanese nibs. Those who start with Japanese pens always think of Western nibs as fat.

 

Those of us who started with Western nibs, know Japanese nibs as skinnier than marked size.

 

Japanese nibs ould well be 1/2 a width narrower than 'narrow'  Pelikan vintage or semi-vintage nibs......................I don't know if they are even narrower than that.  I had enough $ problems chasing German pens.

 

Three companies, using their own standards plus tolerance means even with in the company it is only approximate and when compared to another company it's oranges vs tangerines, in each company has it's very own standard. Then drop in Japanese narrow nibs.

 

Someone's F could be another's EF or M or so close measurement don't really matter. Call the others a real Skinny F or a real Fat F.

 

.....and the new number standard of 1.2-1.0-0.8 are just as off as the letter BB, B or M nib sizes are.

 

Even robot cut steel nibs from Lamy are off in constant width. (I did see the older larger machine....Goulet's vid, shows the smaller new one.)

 

There will be variance.....it is completely normal for three pens of the same width coming off the factory's line to be each a bit different.....and still be with in tolerance...skinny F, fat F, & normal F.

 

Tolerance is normal, in the AI's haven't taken over and removed slop.

 

IMO many people are too OCD and expect every F nib to be exactly the same, even if made from a different company, much less of different eras.

 

Those boring times are coming in the AI days, until then, enjoy a thick, regular and thin F................and the next company's F that has a different standard so as your normal company....will over lap what you consider 'normal in F vs M.

 

Nib width is either horseshoe or hand grenade close; only.

 

 

 

Sheaffer used a dial indicator nib gauge for measuring nib sizes. The nib was inserted into the gauge, and the size read off of the dial. A given size being nibs that fell within a given range. What is listed below were the ranges given on a gauge that I saw in the Sheaffer service center prior to being closed in March 2008.

Measurements are in thousandths of an inch.

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

*there was some overlap on the gauge. May be 0.035 - 0.050

 

That's a lot of information to digest.  Thanks for taking the time to post that.

 

Ed

[InkyEd]

7 minutes ago, 51ISH said:

 Well done you to rediscovering fountain pens for enjoyment after such a long time away! I thought I was doing well as my last contact with a fountain pen was in secondary school (11 - 16 yrs old) in the 1970's!!  Yes, to get good results (and enjoyment) you do need good paper,  I'm sure Rhodia is excellent but you can get good quality photocopying paper for a fraction of the cost while you are experimenting if that's a consideration. (Look for paper that is 90gsm) Or check out the 'Paper' section on this website.  Take some time to get to know your new pen...there's no need to 'panic'....you can always get the nib changed if later down the line you find it's not for you. Just a word of caution it's easy to get 'sucked in' to buying different inks...and more pens....Don't ask me how I know....🤣

My best excuse for diving back into this potentially unnecessarily expensive field of interest is that in the past many decades my once passable cursive writing has deteriorated into a line of squiggles that even I sometime have difficulty reading.  I think a fountain pen forces a little more care in forming the letters than a ball point, at least for me.  I intend to spend time every day trying to regain the cursive skills that I once had.

 

Ed

[ErrantSmudge]

My experience aligns pretty closely with arcfide.  My 2000 with F nib is both a wet writer and a wide writer, more like a M in most other pens.  Lamy Black flows well and is well-lubricated, whereas Lamy Blue-Black is probably the least lubricated ink in my collection.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Inkyed............IMO it's the paper and the ink, not the nib for shading.

 

I think you may be thinking of Line Variation, which has more to do with nibs.

The nib if one wants line variation one has to go vintage for semi-flex or the modified Pilot nib...how ever I am no up to date....there might be modern nibs that are semi-flex besides a Pilot with a Pilot mod of two half moons ground into the shoulder of the nib.

With in the last couple of years 'flexi' Ad BS has come along. Companies like Aurora claiming 'flex' and not coming even up to their discontinued semi-flex of 15 years ago. I do know a number of posters spent good money on nibs that should have given at least semi-flex and didn't. They were unhappy!!!!

My advice is to go vintage.

 

American semi-flex Eversharp '40's, some few Shaffer Snorkels in the early '50's were semi-flex.....and I'm not up on English makes and models, and neither was anyone in English Ebay 10-12 years ago when I last looked there. Flexi was then the key word...and it was too vague to have any meaning.

We now have more and better terminology.....that many don't use, or know of.

 

Semi-flex is a flair nib, not a calligraphy nib....IMO. I do like them, having 35.

 

The Pilot Mod is a semi-flex. (I don't have any Japanese pens...German Pens keep me more than busy.) So semi-flex Vintage German factory stubbed nibs like the Pelikan 140/400/400n '50-65, will give you line variation if your Hand is not way too light.

Geha piston pens outside of the school pen, piston ones are regular flex/Japanese 'soft'. ;like the Pelikan120) , MB, and Osmia are some other semi-flex brands.

.......

Line Variation is.....The first letter of a word's wide spot, loops in the word, T crossing and the natural narrowing trail of an e last letter are part of the 'flair' of line variation. Those natural widening of the nib 'should' be 2 X a light down stroke. Comes naturally in semi-flex. If you want to fancy up a last word in a paragraph descender...ing, you can press a semi-flex out to 3X for a bit of show off. If one has a special fancy letter, go 3X. My fancy letter is a capitol L.

 

I was Heavy Handed coming back after a Moses in the ball point desert.....so when I started with semi-flex I was mashing the nib out to 3X all the time. It took me six weeks to stop that and six more weeks that I had a Hand that allowed me to often write just 1 X....unless I wanted a bit of Line Variation. ....then I could Demand It.

.............................

I often say, writing is 1/3rd nib width/flex, 1/3rd paper and 1/3 ink and in that order.

 

There essentially two kinds of inks, boring saturated  monotone inks and two toned shading inks.....(sheen and glitter is for another day). One does need both.

 

Ink ..... Jet paper should be avoided, in it is designed to absorb ink quickly = feathering with fountain pen ink.

Laser/Ink Jet paper is a compromise..........I do have good laser-ink jet papers.

Laser paper is better.

Copy paper of 80g and less (the famous Japanese light paper is no longer made) is not good for shading....it absorbs the ink too fast, so you don't have the ink puddling where the letter is fat.

100-50% cotton has that problem also. I find 25% cotton or rag to be good paper for shading.

Rhoda 80g is very good slick paper and not to be confused with 80g copy paper. I don't have that 80g but do have 90g Rhoda. Coatings is what makes paper good and better. Coating cost money.

90g or heavier is better paper for two toned shading.

IMO the Golden Age of Pens died in 1970. The Golden Age of Paper sometime in the '80's and no one noticed...........my best paper was dirt cheap top glued pad from then. (As a Ball Point Barbarian, I had no need to waste beer money on paper.), how ever we are living in The Golden Age of Inks.

 

......

15 years ago, as a noobie, my third ink was Lamy turquoise, the then basis turquoise that all turquoise were compared .............It was a nice ink but sort of Blaaaa.

I went to Ink Reviews and looked it up (a little late). There were then only tworeviews, and both showed it shading!!!....on 90g paper.

I had a small notebook of Oxford Optic 90g....and on that paper Lamy turquoise shaded....a completely different kettle of fish.

That hooked me on shading inks.

 

Those ...often noobies, in love with just shining wet lines (saturated/supersaturated inks) call two toned shading inks, wishy-washy or pastel.

As I previously mentioned I find saturated inks boring and love the contrast of darker where the ink pools and lighter where the letter is thinner.

So to get shading you need good to better paper.

 

Unfortunately, the heirs of our Grand Ink Guru Sandy1, killed her on com pictures.

Her ink reviews were so grand. A lesson for anyone.

She used 4-5 normal flex nibs....not superflex or even semi-flex to show how width of a nib, made an ink look so different and she used 4-5 good to better papers.....some 8-9 over the 13 years I had the pleasure of seeing how magical paper and nib width was to the hue of an ink. Often it was almost impossible to believe it was the same ink.

 

My advice is never put your writing paper in your printer.....(well I went over to 90 g paper in my printer in stead of the 80g, but I don't print out lots. That's not 'wasting' good paper in I'm going to edit, so am going to scribble on it.) I like  the possibility of shading ink, even if I normally use an EF for editing. With an F I can get shading.

My advice....

For every three inks you buy, buy a ream of good to better paper and if not printed, it will last years, or a box of better paper. Soon you will have a paper collection to go with your pens and inks.

 

I do have a dither problem, I can look in three directions in my library and find good to better papers.

 

But I did it ALL WRONG!!!!

I bought pens like no tomorrow, then got caught in an ink avalanche.

 

I lucked out into an Aldi action of return to school (I got two years worth...but they discontinued the third year, when I was going to buy them out and ship paper around the world...one or to were shipped too.), that gave me four of the say 8-10 papers one 'must' have. When I went down town (Germany) I found lots of papers that were great for ball points. When I went to the States I stocked up on Southworth boxes.

 

I use spiral notebooks of Oxford Optic90g; the same paper as in Black And Red notebooks, or Clairefontaine Velout`90g which I find =. Those are my normal scribble paper.

 

Paper is the dance floor your nib and ink tango on.

 

I may have 40 papers but find my self so paper ignorant.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Oh, I always thought of Lamy inks as medium-dry to dry.

Dry in some cases as dry as 4001.

Royal Blue and violet (Lamy too)....must admit, I've seldom used my cartridges of Pelikan Turquoise but have it in mind as very similar to Lamy's. (I basically use piston pens which I have many more than CC. pens.)

I don't do BB much even if I have 6 or so inks.

Black...I have still 1/2 a bottle of 15 year old Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black, in it and Royal Blue were my inks in the childhood, in they were cheaper in the States than Parker or Shaffer...........so I don't use black.

Just for the hell of it these old Lamy bottles and boxes are from W.Germany time or pre'91. The new Lamy ink bottles are and have been great for ages. One needs a Lamy bottle ...recommend buying a MB bottle empty, at today's prices.

 

Do Not Buy Lamy Green!!!!! It is a real bad green.

I had heard that from the greats, like Sandy1 and others.....a world horrible ink.

I was doing a dither test on various Gmund fountain pen friendly papers, and at that expense i was dithering for years. I had some 14 or more green-greenish inks,  and only with one pen on one of those papers did Lamy actually land towards the middle of the pack beating a couple of the basic 10-12 greenish inks. The rest of the time it was battling for last; the worst green ink.

[Lithium466]

2 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Do Not Buy Lamy Green!!!!! It is a real bad green.

I had heard that from the greats, like Sandy1 and others.....a world horrible ink.

I have to disagree on this one. Maybe it was bad, but the ink I recently bought is just a standard, well behaved and easy to clean green.
 

Uninspiring "ballpoint green" hue, just a basic green, but still competent, aka you won't wonder what color it is. Honestly I like it better than Pilot basic green (in cartridges).

 

I feel like the Lamy inks I recently bought are just better, more saturated than what I remember buying 15 years ago. Black feels darker and more saturated, blue too, green is fine now...ok, red sucks (IMO), unless you use it in a gusher Lamy 2000 😁

[Mangrove Jack]

I too find the Lamy green ink very useable and have a pen inked with it always on my desk. There's nothing spectacular about it. Its a basic green that does what I require of it - to look green and stand out, on the page, against black or blue writing. 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

There are so many other great greens....a great lively affordable shading  Green-green now is R&K's Verdura for @ E-8.50.... same size bottle vs the now rip off MB's E-23 for Irish green, 7-8 years go I paid E-15 for my MB Irish Green. Pelikan discontinued, it's 4001 Brilliant green, was replaced by a non shading dull dark green....that I gave away the day before yesterday. A day I chiseled into my wall of memory.

 

Back when Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Green was available it stomped Lamy uninspiring green into a mudpuddle. Pelikan shaded and Lamy didn't or not enough to notice, and I was looking.

 

R&K Verdura was a nose better than MB Irish, and a neck better than 4001's Brilliant Green. all three are green-green shading inks. (After I was finished with my rating, I got some MB Irish and scribbled a word or two where there was space...a nice in back when it was affordable....but I had rated R&K Verdura a tad over it, before MB's price gouging.

 

OK now to see if I can make sense out of a test made ages ago. I must have gotten a bad bottle of Diamine Meadow Green. Everyone told me that. It was last by far....Lamy beat it.

I didn't have MB green then.

 

There were green seven inks tested and counted. I had 14 (I bought 14 greenish inks in the first year of green) or more then, but some like Herbin Vert Empire, or R&K Altgoldgrun just were not 'normal day' inks in my test.

Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Green, R&K Verdura, Pelikan Edelstein Aventurine, GvFC Moss Green, DA Golf**, Lamy green and Damine Green Meadow.

**DA Golf is a faded green that shades very well but I only rated Lamy  6 on the tests....and DA Golf was only rated 3 times 3/4, 2/3, 5/6. but higher on the whole than Lamy's six times. DA Golf is to me an odd ink that one 'should have' like R&K's Altgoldgrun. I don't think I'd buy a second bottle.

It remained me of a sun-baked golf green....but Golf in German has more to do with a drying southern Sahara wind.  I liked it, but not enough to use it often. A dusty shading green.

Of course my test is prejudiced, I like shading inks and the test was slanted for shading on 11 good different sheets of paper.

 

There were 11 sheets of paper the inks were tested on...and rated.

An Akkerman H.Green was slightly tested. Akkerman ink is made by Diamine to Akkerman's thoughts; close but not the same cigar. Sometimes, it shaded well, but had often enough a woolly line...I"m down on feathering and woolly lines. So this lively green-green ink was disqualified.

 

 Lamy rated on 5 of the 11 papers. Once tied for 3rd, once 5th, 2nd, 6th and 4th. 5 ratings....in I only went to 4-5 or so in my ratings mostly.

I then had Pelikan Brilliant Green at 20 points in 11 sheets vs 21 for R&K Verdura. (Even though I rate R&K a bit higher than 4001 Brilliant Green.)

Aventurine was 26, Moss Green 40 those were the only inks that tested high on all the 11 papers. When you have 11 papers, 4th is pretty good, even 5th.

 

 Looking at the better papers, in I was looking to find out which fountain pen friendly paper Gmund paper I wanted to buy; some at 40 Euros for 100 sheets, others at 40 Euros for 50 sheets, so I tested every ink I had. I dithered cubed. Make sure you get Fountain pen friendly when you want paper samples, in a few of the paper makers also make art paper which is not good for fountain pens.

 

It wasn't a fair test to any of the inks, I used from EF, regular flex, EF semi-flex, that again in F-M-B in regular flex and semi-flex, up to OBB semi-flex so it was just putting the inks to the papers with an assortment of nibs, not a true test.

 

I had many more papers of my papers than just those expensive ones I was going to buy. Older papers I had were scribbled also to see how they inked, but that wasn't part of a test in I didn't have enough blues, purples, browns and so on to do the testing i could do with green.

 

Papers were eliminated quickly, the less scribbles the worse the paper. The more scribbles the better the paper. I got down to 3 papers, I could have gotten down to 5 in they were good, but not best. But at E 40 for either 50 or 100 sheets....LOM stuck ....well it had been jumping up and down in size 39 boots for quite while.

I got two sheets for free and back then paid E0.85 for the other seven sheets.

 

I got down to two sheets Gmund Blanc Beige; one in beige 120g the slighted tad better than the Blanc Beige creme 170g. At the last second I pressed the button for the 170g, in I like heavy papers.

 

That was E-40 for 100 sheets, in the more expensive papers  E-40 for 50, didn't quite make the grade.

My second best paper. My best was the non-watermarked cheaper than dirt '80's paper pad remnants that got stuck in a stack good bond paper (too good for a printer) back in the '80's. I was a Ball Point Barbarian and would not have wasted beer money on paper.

In the '80's the Golden Age of Paper died, and no one noticed. Even cheap paper had good coating.

 

So looking for shading greens (along with many other inks) I came to the conclusion of many of the old timers.......I was glad I only had one cartridge pack of Lamy Green.

Yes, in a few papers it was almost OK, even good-OK a couple of times. But on a majority of the papers it wasn't even rated. Shading was important to me in my tests and the results were so slanted.

Lamy Turquoise is very good, violet which is only in cartridges also.  I'm not high on Lamy's Royal Blue, Pelikans not either. I like DA's Royal Blue (tinged towards royal purple) even if it is saturated it's not as dry as Pelikan or Lamy Royal Blue. 

 

Some folks don't like lively green-green inks, I do.

I still have a smidgen left of Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Green, mostly a full bottle for MB Irish Green (never to be refilled) and will buy a new bottle of R&K Verdura as soon as it gets close, even before it hits empty. I do like R&K inks on the whole.

 

[InkyEd]

19 hours ago, ErrantSmudge said:

My experience aligns pretty closely with arcfide.  My 2000 with F nib is both a wet writer and a wide writer, more like a M in most other pens.  Lamy Black flows well and is well-lubricated, whereas Lamy Blue-Black is probably the least lubricated ink in my collection.

I did see my fear of the pen being too "wet" when my pad of Rhodia paper arrived and I found the pen wrote about as I had expected.  The printer paper I had first used for a test is not a good choice for this pen and ink combination. 

 

Ed