EFNIR: Cross Blue/Black

[LizEF]

Extra Fine Nib Ink Review: Cross Blue/Black

This is review #354 in my series. Here's the YouTube video:

Post-recording notes: I got this sample in November of 2024 from Anderson Pens. I was shocked to open the vial for review and see purple. Not blurple, purple. I did some research. I'm not 100% certain this isn't an error, but I'm pretty sure this is just how Cross Blue/Black is - purple (when wet) and dries to a blurple-black. Reviews by Visvamitra (FPN) and Mike Matteson (YouTube) seem to confirm the purple, though they don't describe it as this strong. Check out this FPN thread for further discussion and purple-confirmation from Penguincollector.

I have nothing similar to this color. Diamine Regency Blue, in its lighter areas, looks a little similar to this ink. The other two comparison swatches were just to show how purple this ink is. In the video, everything looks too blue.

Cleaning was quick and easy except it left a ring in my converter - came out easy with a swab.

Zoomed in photo (Color is fairly close.)

Screenshot (Text is too dark, especially at the top of the page (wetter flow?).)

Scan of Completed Review (Text might be a smidge too light, but otherwise very close to what I see.)

Absorbent Paper Close-up (top is puzzle paper like thick newsprint, bottom is old 20lb copy paper) (Both of these are more blue than on other papers - perhaps because no sheen shows. But the color isn't quite right for either half of the image.)

Line width (The "I" in "Ink:". Magnification is 100x. The grid is 100x100µm. The scale is 330µm, with eleven divisions of 30µm each. The line width for this ink is roughly 310µm. With 354 inks measured, the average line width is 298µm.)

Microscope image (100x. Ice storm! Lavender below, blurple atop.)

Chromatogram (To me, that top color looks totally purple, with blue below it, and a grey dot at the bottom.)

Sheen (You can see it starts sheeny, but by the fourth digit, it only sheens where the stroke ends or overlaps.)

Chroma and Purple (Photo of the chroma strip and sample vial. Inset photo of slide (top right) with purple under the slip and blue outside it.  Scan of the swatch card (lower right) looks blurple-black to me.)

Previous Review: Montblanc Irish Green.

Images also available on Instagram: @zilxodarap.

Want to influence the inky sequence? Take the "next ink" poll.

View a list of my inks, complete with review results in a google sheet.

Need to catch up on The Adventures of Quin and Makhabesh? Find the whole story here.

Hope you enjoy. Comments appreciated!

[yazeh]

Excellent review @LizEF for such an intriguing ink with a "misleading" name. I appreciate the surprisingly gorgeous chroma and the swatch.  Often times when I pause the video to see the swatches (on phone), the YouTube bar covers the names. So it was very pleasant to see the photo for one: Hint, hint. 😎

 

The colour reminds me of Kung Te-Chang. 

The microscopic image is fantastic, with the intense Klein blue type colour contrasting with the crystalline white, could it be Neptune?

 

I learned a word today, scrying. Retrospectively, the microscopic image seems to capture professor Eenees' hiding / missing spot. With "Etherie" becoming mystical. 

The quote was thought provoking. Have we become more tribal and polarized? Is our need to be in social structures and yet craving freedom from it rules and regulations our eternal conflict?

 

Questions to ponder.

 

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to scry in our souls as nature begins it's long journey to sleep in the northern hemisphere. 🙏🙏🙏

[Sailor Kenshin]

Ice trees and flying feathers on this chilly day! 

Pretty sure I had Cross BB, when I also had a Cross pen that came with two nib sections.  It was a spiffy-looking pen, silver with gold trim, but the BB was in the included proprietary cartridges.  

 

The chroma's interesting, and your writing sample does look more blurple than I remember from the carts.  What I got looked more like the dipped Jinhao version.

 

Traveling toward 'Ice Land.'  What happens next?  Thanks for the story and review, @LizEF! 

 

[LizEF]

40 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Excellent review @LizEF for such an intriguing ink with a "misleading" name.

Thanks!

 

41 minutes ago, yazeh said:

I appreciate the surprisingly gorgeous chroma and the swatch.  Often times when I pause the video to see the swatches (on phone), the YouTube bar covers the names. So it was very pleasant to see the photo for one: Hint, hint. 😎

Do you mean the bar showing video progress and video controls, or the annoying add-on that recommends other videos while you're paused?  I will add a screenshot of the comparisons to the review images (though perhaps not all the time on IG, since I'm only allowed 10 images there).

 

44 minutes ago, yazeh said:

The colour reminds me of Kung Te-Chang. 

I haven't seen it in person.  Online, it looks a bit more purple than dried Cross Blue-Black (which is less purple when dry).

 

45 minutes ago, yazeh said:

The microscopic image is fantastic, with the intense Klein blue type colour contrasting with the crystalline white, could it be Neptune?

  Clearly, it's the ice fields!!

 

46 minutes ago, yazeh said:

I learned a word today, scrying. Retrospectively, the microscopic image seems to capture professor Eenees' hiding / missing spot. With "Etherie" becoming mystical.

Now you've got it!

 

47 minutes ago, yazeh said:

The quote was thought provoking. Have we become more tribal and polarized? Is our need to be in social structures and yet craving freedom from it rules and regulations our eternal conflict?

 

Questions to ponder.

I suppose one can view the quote from various perspectives: all the way from couple to species.  Apparently, we're complex beings (and kinda stupid, too ).

 

51 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to scary in our souls as nature begins it's long journey to sleep in the northern hemisphere. 🙏🙏🙏

You're most welcome!  (Apparently, Otto Korrect has yet to learn "scry". )

[LizEF]

35 minutes ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Ice trees and flying feathers on this chilly day! 

 

36 minutes ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Pretty sure I had Cross BB, when I also had a Cross pen that came with two nib sections.  It was a spiffy-looking pen, silver with gold trim, but the BB was in the included proprietary cartridges.  

Some online images had me really looking forward to it, but alas, disappointment.  It's rarely reviewed - perhaps this is why.

 

37 minutes ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

The chroma's interesting, and your writing sample does look more blurple than I remember from the carts.  What I got looked more like the dipped Jinhao version.

I'm guessing paper has a fairly big impact on the perceived color, and clearly drying changes it significantly.  I'm still wondering why they did it this way instead of just making it blue-black...

 

38 minutes ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Traveling toward 'Ice Land.'  What happens next?  Thanks for the story and review, @LizEF! 

You're most welcome!

[LizEF]

35 minutes ago, LizEF said:

I will add a screenshot of the comparisons to the review images (though perhaps not all the time on IG, since I'm only allowed 10 images there).

And, hooray!  The code was already written to handle any suffix I might choose to attach to a file name.  I love it when I'm clever!

[yazeh]

40 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Do you mean the bar showing video progress and video controls?

Yes. 

40 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 I will add a screenshot of the comparisons to the review images

Thx. 

40 minutes ago, LizEF said:

I haven't seen it in person.  Online, it looks a bit more purple than dried Cross Blue-Black (which is less purple when dry).

I haven't written with it in a long time.

40 minutes ago, LizEF said:

I suppose one can view the quote from various perspectives: all the way from couple to species.  Apparently, we're complex beings (and kinda stupid, too ).

I kinda agree with the both parts. Scary. 

40 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 

You're most welcome!  (Apparently, Otto Korrect has yet to learn "scry". )

Yep. It did. I corrected it. Scry on you, Otto !

 

[LizEF]

7 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Yep. It did. I corrected it. Scry on you, Otto !

[yazeh]

24 minutes ago, LizEF said:

And, hooray!  The code was already written to handle any suffix I might choose to attach to a file name.  I love it when I'm clever!

Clever you.  ⭐ 

[InesF]

Like Lena Waithe with people, like Vika with Earth, so I don't like to be far away from a true Blue-Black or Blue-Grey.   

(OK, I can live with and I can write with most inks of other colours as well 🙄  )

 

Thank you, @LizEF, for this ink review, for the story part (😋) and for arranging such a nice microscopy image! 

As @yazeh already mentioned, the microscopy image supports and extends the story in an almost documentary way.

@LizEF, have you ever considered making microscopic-ink-mangas?    

 

This Cross ink looks very good, I can imagine using it for daily writing purposes.

However, there is this still partly solved problem with the ink drawer ... 🥹

 

Looking forward to next week's EFNIR weekly manga!   

[LizEF]

8 hours ago, InesF said:

Like Lena Waithe with people, like Vika with Earth, so I don't like to be far away from a true Blue-Black or Blue-Grey.   

(OK, I can live with and I can write with most inks of other colours as well 🙄  )

 

8 hours ago, InesF said:

Thank you, @LizEF, for this ink review, for the story part (😋) and for arranging such a nice microscopy image! 

You're most welcome!

 

8 hours ago, InesF said:

As @yazeh already mentioned, the microscopy image supports and extends the story in an almost documentary way.

I thought the same as soon as I saw it.

 

8 hours ago, InesF said:

@LizEF, have you ever considered making microscopic-ink-mangas?    

Hmm.  No.  I'm not terribly familiar with manga.  If I had a better camera on the microscope, I would totally make a coffee table book.  But the images are so small, that in print, the largest they could be is about 4 x 5.33 inches (or 10 x 13.5cm) - kinda small for a coffee table book.

 

8 hours ago, InesF said:

This Cross ink looks very good, I can imagine using it for daily writing purposes.

However, there is this still partly solved problem with the ink drawer ... 🥹

 

8 hours ago, InesF said:

Looking forward to next week's EFNIR weekly manga!   

Thanks!