EFNIR: Parker Quink Permanent Blue-Black (vintage)

[knarflj]

19 hours ago, Mercian said:

Sadly though, what I have found that I need to do is actually do the exercises that are explained within them! 😱

Apparently, just the act of having these books sitting on a shelf or table in my house doesn't magically improve my drawing ability 🤯

 

What, you mean that's why I can't draw?   I just need to figure out how to fit this into my schedule so that I can keep doing it, instead of just doing the first exercise or two over and over at roughly five-year intervals....

[USG]

On 11/25/2025 at 9:47 AM, LizEF said:

Water Test Results 

 

Hi Liz  👍👍 as usual.

I wonder if you could discuss the water test a little further?

How water resistant is this ink now?  Is it still permanent?

What do you think made it a permanent ink?

If they mixed in Iron Gall could it still be active after 80 years?

 

[LizEF]

6 minutes ago, USG said:

Hi Liz  👍👍 as usual.

Thanks!

 

6 minutes ago, USG said:

I wonder if you could discuss the water test a little further?

By all means!

 

6 minutes ago, USG said:

How water resistant is this ink now?  Is it still permanent?

To my mind, the water-test image speaks for itself: A small amount of dye came up, and what's left is easily read.  I couldn't begin to guess lightfastness or other forms of permanence (since I didn't test those).

 

8 minutes ago, USG said:

What do you think made it a permanent ink?

If they mixed in Iron Gall could it still be active after 80 years?

Per the previous vintage ink review (the one just before this, of Parker Quink Permanent Royal Blue), I have to assume this also has iron gall in it.  As to it successfully aging, per Kestrel's post, it appears to have been an unopened bottle.  Without air, the iron gall presumably won't oxidize...  Or there's something about it that I don't know.  As these two inks are the only experience I've had with vintage inks, and I haven't researched them at all, I can't say more beyond this and noting the fact that there are "staining" dyes which would leave marks behind despite water.  Whether this ink uses a staining dye, I don't know - just mentioning that they exist.

 

FWIW & HTH

[kestrel]

I'm throwing this out there for someone to either verify or refute.  I have no evidence except a memory of having read somewhere that washable ink could be washed out of clothing with relative ease but Permanent was made with more, well, permanent dyes and would stain.  Washable Quink was aimed at the student market because students tend to be messier, more careless, and more prone to fling ink around.  I have spent considerable time over the last four days looking for a reference and couldn't find one.  Anyone out there have something verifiable?

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, kestrel said:

washable ink could be washed out of clothing with relative ease but Permanent was made with more, well, permanent dyes and would stain.

Yes, I've heard this too, and mentioned it in one of these reviews.  But I was just repeating what I've heard. I don't have an authoritative source.

[yazeh]

@LizEF A simple IG test is to smear some ink on your finger. The reaction with skin oils will create a metallic odour.  Every time I replace a Kaweco nib while reviewing Tintenlabor inks, I can smell the metallic odour.  But as I posted before I doubt Parker inks were true iron gall.

 

[LizEF]

53 minutes ago, yazeh said:

@LizEF A simple IG test is to smear some ink on your finger. The reaction with skin oils will create a metallic odour.  Every time I replace a Kaweco nib while reviewing Tintenlabor inks, I can smell the metallic odour.  But as I posted before I doubt Parker inks were true iron gall.

 

Yes, we tried that last time, and I couldn't tell a difference, but given how dry my skin is, that's not definitive.  And Royal Blue smelled like Noodler's Bad Blue Heron (and like the sort of cat de-wormer that's applied on the back of their neck).  No idea what ingredient that might be, but I didn't notice the smell from Blue-Black, so that ingredient might be missing or not as strong (anymore?).

 

I suspect we'll just have to live with not knowing until / unless some insider spots us.  

[yazeh]

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

 

Yes, we tried that last time, and I couldn't tell a difference, but given how dry my skin is, that's not definitive. 

This works with my more "oily" skin, like Quin's arch enemy.

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

And Royal Blue smelled like Noodler's Bad Blue Heron (and like the sort of cat de-wormer that's applied on the back of their neck). 

And I thought you didn't have a sense of smell.

 

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

No idea what ingredient that might be, but I didn't notice the smell from Blue-Black, so that ingredient might be missing or not as strong (anymore?).

 

I suspect we'll just have to live with not knowing until / unless some insider spots us.  

In the vintage Parker blue black thread I posted a study on Parker Permenant Black.  I had ChatGPT condense the data into a paragraph, with all the caveats one should account for with AI:

Mid-century Parker Quink Permanent Blue-Black isn’t a true iron-gall ink.  Chemical analyses show only about 1 % ferrous sulfate—enough to leave a brown trace over decades and mildly corrode cheap steel nibs, but far below the levels in Pelikan 4001 IG or ESSRI.  It’s essentially a dye-based “quasi-IG” formulation whose Solv-X additives kept pens clean.  Real iron-gall inks, by contrast, rarely survive fifty years unopened: their ferrous salts oxidize and precipitate, leaving a solid, acidic residue long before that.

[LizEF]

3 hours ago, yazeh said:

This works with my more "oily" skin, like Quin's arch enemy.

 

3 hours ago, yazeh said:

And I thought you didn't have a sense of smell.

Well, it's not strong, and is sort of disconnected - e.g. things don't necessarily smell good or bad, they just have an odor.  But super-strong artificial smells still smell nasty to me.  It's hard to describe, so I basically say that it's not reliable in terms of guessing what anyone else may smell or think of a smell...

 

3 hours ago, yazeh said:

In the vintage Parker blue black thread I posted a study on Parker Permenant Black.  I had ChatGPT condense the data into a paragraph, with all the caveats one should account for with AI:

Mid-century Parker Quink Permanent Blue-Black isn’t a true iron-gall ink.  Chemical analyses show only about 1 % ferrous sulfate—enough to leave a brown trace over decades and mildly corrode cheap steel nibs, but far below the levels in Pelikan 4001 IG or ESSRI.  It’s essentially a dye-based “quasi-IG” formulation whose Solv-X additives kept pens clean.  Real iron-gall inks, by contrast, rarely survive fifty years unopened: their ferrous salts oxidize and precipitate, leaving a solid, acidic residue long before that.

 Yes, I remember.  This seems about as "official" as we're going to get.

[yazeh]

56 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 

 

Well, it's not strong, and is sort of disconnected - e.g. things don't necessarily smell good or bad, they just have an odor.  But super-strong artificial smells still smell nasty to me.  It's hard to describe, so I basically say that it's not reliable in terms of guessing what anyone else may smell or think of a smell...

Well we all have different sense of smell. Hence some love lilies, or paper-whites others hate them. Some love the overpowering sense of winter jasmine, I had to throw the plant out (not for indoors.). 

56 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 Yes, I remember.  This seems about as "official" as we're going to get.

 

[LizEF]

Just now, yazeh said:

Well we all have different sense of smell. Hence some love lilies, or paper-whites others hate them. Some love the overpowering sense of winter jasmine, I had to throw the plant out (not for indoors.). 

Yes, but mine very definitely changed after a head injury.  It was much weaker and less "stable" for a few years, then settled into "not very reliable" after that.  

[yazeh]

5 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Yes, but mine very definitely changed after a head injury. 

I'm truly sorry. I can relate to that. I started craving frozen fruit in the middle of the winter.

 

5 minutes ago, LizEF said:

It was much weaker and less "stable" for a few years, then settled into "not very reliable" after that.  

It's like memory. It's not always reliable, and most of the time, there's the difference between what we felt, how we interpreted and what really happened.

 

[LizEF]

55 minutes ago, yazeh said:

I'm truly sorry. I can relate to that. I started craving frozen fruit in the middle of the winter.

Thanks! 'Twas a long time ago.  Head injuries do strange things to us.  My food preferences changed for a while, too, and returned to normal once my sense of smell stabilized.

 

56 minutes ago, yazeh said:

It's like memory. It's not always reliable, and most of the time, there's the difference between what we felt, how we interpreted and what really happened.

Oh, yes - memory's the biggest liar out there.   

[inkstainedruth]

Yeah.  When someone starts talking to me about the assassination of JFK?  I mostly remember my mom having some conversation with a guy through the window of his house, when she was bringing my brother and me home from the library (but don't remember what was said).  And what I DO remember is something I saw on The Today Show -- footage of the line of people where he was buried (but not understanding what was happening),  Followed by -- of all things -- a segment on flamenco dancing!

In my defense, of course, I was maybe four years old at the time....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[titrisol]

This ink was the "gold standard" for me, my dad used it and I was only allowed to use it every blue moon (Pelikan 4001 Knongsblau was the school ink)

The version with SolvX is the old old one, more gray than blue but the pen glides over the paper, color doesnt fade or change even is some documents more thn 40 years old.

The teal version from the 70s-90s is also wonderful, I used that one until a few months ago that my stash ran out.  Lubrication didtn change, but color goes from blue to teal after a few days depending on the paper quality. 

I just got a bottle of the new version and seems more saturated/blue but still glides effortlessly even with a 62/A nib

 

 

[LizEF]

39 minutes ago, titrisol said:

This ink was the "gold standard" for me, my dad used it and I was only allowed to use it every blue moon (Parker Knongsblau was the school ink)

The version with SolvX is the old old one, more gray than blue but the pen glides over the paper, color doesnt fade or change even is some documents more thn 40 years old.

The teal version from the 70s-90s is also wonderful, I used that one until a few months ago that my stash ran out.  Lubrication didtn change, but color goes from blue to teal after a few days depending on the paper quality. 

I just got a bottle of the new version and seems more saturated/blue but still glides effortlessly even with a 62/A nib

 Thanks, @titrisol!  Great to hear from someone who has lots of experience with the ink.

[USG]

20 hours ago, LizEF said:

Well, it's not strong, and is sort of disconnected - e.g. things don't necessarily smell good or bad, they just have an odor.  But super-strong artificial smells still smell nasty to me.  It's hard to describe, so I basically say that it's not reliable in terms of guessing what anyone else may smell or think of a smell...

 

That's curious Liz.  I didn't know you had an injury.  Does, for instance, coffee and chocolate have identifiable odors?

 

I'm not familiar with the ink you referenced but did the 'Royal Blue' ink smell like one of the Diamine Blue's moldy odors or something else?

 

[LizEF]

4 minutes ago, USG said:

That's curious Liz.  I didn't know you had an injury.

  It was on Halloween (fluke, not related) of 1990.  I was in college.

 

5 minutes ago, USG said:

Does, for instance, coffee and chocolate have identifiable odors?

I don't drink coffee.  Its odor is nasty to me, but I doubt that's a change (I didn't grow up around coffee).  I'm not sure if chocolate has an identifiable odor - or rather, I'm sure it does, but I'd have to stick my nose in a bag of chocolate chips to detect it.  At the time of my head injury, foods that I was most accustomed to eating didn't sound appealing to me (e.g. burritos, chocolate, bagels). The exception was "cold" desserts - chocolate ice cream and pudding were fine, but chocolate bars or chocolate chip cookies - yuck (at the time).  And the effect lasted longest for chocolate in solid form - at times it would seem appealing, but not taste good, at other times it wouldn't seem appealing, but would taste good.  Even though I never lost my sense of taste, it did seem to return to normal along with my sense of smell.

 

9 minutes ago, USG said:

I'm not familiar with the ink you referenced but did the 'Royal Blue' ink smell like one of the Diamine Blue's moldy odors or something else?

I don't know Diamine Blue, and I'd be seriously suspicious of any ink that smelled "moldy" (as in, rotten, rotten eggs, sulfur, sweaty socks, dank basement, etc.).  This is a strong chemical smell.  There's another ink that had it (besides those mentioned), but I don't remember which it was - I remember I mentioned it when I did the review.  Given that the same odor came with the pet medicine, I have to assume it's some common ingredient - perhaps a biocide or perhaps some surfactant or stabilizer or something.

[titrisol]

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

 Thanks, @titrisol!  Great to hear from someone who has lots of experience with the ink.

Parker Quink is one of those inks that should be in everyone's cabinet

It is safe, well behaved and easy to clean

 

Attached a quick handwritten note to see if you can spot the differences

[LizEF]

10 minutes ago, titrisol said:

Parker Quink is one of those inks that should be in everyone's cabinet

It is safe, well behaved and easy to clean

 

10 minutes ago, titrisol said:

Attached a quick handwritten note to see if you can spot the differences

Absolutely!  Excellent demonstration of the color changes.