Diamine Onyx Black or Diamine Jet Black?

[dhanks]

I've never tried a Diamine ink, though I've been using fountain pens exclusively since 1985.  I need a good black ink and I want to try out Diamine.  Can folks with personal experience share their experiences and thoughts about Diamine Onyx Black and/or Diamine Jet Black?  I am going to get one or the other and am interested in their writing properties and depth of color (darkness).  Is one preferable to the other, and why?  Thanks very much for any help you folks can give.

 

Rumpole

[dhanks]

Does anyone have any thoughts on these two inks?  I would appreciate knowing what your experience is and your thoughts.  Thank you.

 

Rumpole

[boilermaker1975]

I have both those inks but little experience with them so far. I have jet black in a Lamy Safari. It is the scratchiest nib that I have so I haven't been using it. This was the first inking of that pen.

[dhanks]

1 hour ago, boilermaker1975 said:

I have both those inks but little experience with them so far. I have jet black in a Lamy Safari. It is the scratchiest nib that I have so I haven't been using it. This was the first inking of that pen.

Well, if you end up using the inks enough to form any impressions/opinions of them, I would love to hear them (read them).  Thanks.

Rumpole

[Karmachanic]

1 hour ago, dhanks said:

impressions/opinions of them

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/160612-index-of-ink-reviews/

Diamine.

And other reviews elsewhere on the web.  Works for me.

[boilermaker1975]

@Karmachanic Bookmarked! Thanks!

[dhanks]

2 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/160612-index-of-ink-reviews/

Diamine.

And other reviews elsewhere on the web.  Works for me.

Thank you.

Rumpole

[Penguincollector]

   I’m not into black inks per se, but I do enjoy using Jet Black. It’s very well behaved and has a bluish undertone. It’s an in between saturated black, not the darkest I’ve used, but not a dark grey. Onyx black is more purplish and a tiny bit darker. I’m not super fond of the undertones of this one. 
 

  Have you checked out Mountain of Ink’s reviews? They do an amazing job of trying each ink with various different pens and nib sizes and papers. 
 

Here’s a link to the Diamine page: 

Diamine Ink Reviews of Mountain of Ink

[dhanks]

5 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

   I’m not into black inks per se, but I do enjoy using Jet Black. It’s very well behaved and has a bluish undertone. It’s an in between saturated black, not the darkest I’ve used, but not a dark grey. Onyx black is more purplish and a tiny bit darker. I’m not super fond of the undertones of this one. 
 

  Have you checked out Mountain of Ink’s reviews? They do an amazing job of trying each ink with various different pens and nib sizes and papers. 
 

Here’s a link to the Diamine page: 

Diamine Ink Reviews of Mountain of Ink

Thank you, very helpful.  I am leaning toward Jet Black.

Rumpole

 

[Penguincollector]

I hope you like Jet Black! 

[Mercian]

On 10/31/2025 at 5:22 PM, boilermaker1975 said:

@Karmachanic Bookmarked! Thanks!

 

On 10/31/2025 at 5:56 PM, dhanks said:

Thank you.

Rumpole

 

It's very difficult for the Mods here to keep up with all the reviews, so the indices on the Ink Review/Comparison boards can often be a bit outdated.

Of late, I have found the FPN-specific Google custom search that was put up by one of our Mods (@watch_art) to be very useful when looking for reviews/comparison threads.

 

Using the search pinned in that thread, and entering the search string "compare diamine onyx jet black" returned a good few hits for me.

 

The one that I suspect may be most-helpful to you is this ↓ old thread:

 

Then again, that does date to 2013, and so it is possible that one or other of the inks has been reformulated since then.

Reading more-recent reviews of the inks on here, and elsewhere, should enable you to get a better picture of any differences in colour/behaviour between the current iterations of the inks.

 

Anyway, I wish you good luck wrt your choice of ink, and lots of fun 'playing with' the specific Google search 

 

Slàinte,
M.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2025 by Mercian
Edited for clarity

[dhanks]

18 hours ago, Mercian said:

 

 

It's very difficult for the Mods here to keep up with all the reviews, so the indices on the Ink Review/Comparison boards can often be a bit outdated.

Of late, I have found the FPN-specific Google custom search that was put up by one of our Mods (@watch_art) to be very useful when looking for reviews/comparison threads.

 

Using the search pinned in that thread, and entering the search string "compare diamine onyx jet black" returned a good few hits for me.

 

The one that I suspect may be most-helpful to you is this ↓ old thread:

 

Then again, that does date to 2013, and so it is possible that one or other of the inks has been reformulated since then.

Reading more-recent reviews of the inks on here, and elsewhere, should enable you to get a better picture of any differences in colour/behaviour between the current iterations of the inks.

 

Anyway, I wish you good luck wrt your choice of ink, and lots of fun 'playing with' the specific Google search 

 

Slàinte,
M.

 

 

Thank you, that's very helpful.

Rumpole