Parker Penman Ruby

[penguinmaster]

Here you go!

 

[Margana]

Good to see a review of one of my favorite inks. The color is IMO slightly redder, paler and less saturated than PR Black Cherry, an ink that produces a very consistent, deep color. Ruby is also similar to Mont Blanc Bordeaux and Noodler's Tiananmen though MBB is a bit more pink and Tian is a bit more red. Ruby if anything almost looks a tad more brown. Still MBB and Ruby are close enough in color that I have on more than one occasion been uncertain which one was loaded in a pen.

 

One of my favorite ink characteristics is shading and Ruby is very good at that in a wide variety of pens. Most of my nibs write somewhat dry, unlike the pen used for the review, so that might contribute to the abundance of shading I've seen. MBB is good in this regard but it seems to result more from pooling than flow which is how they differ.

 

After using both inks for a couple of years, I am happy with either one in a pen. However, if you aren't interested in searching out the rare bottle on eBay and paying around $20 per bottle including shipping, MBB is a whole lot easier to procure.

[encephalartos]

Good to see a review of one of my favorite inks. The color is IMO slightly redder, paler and less saturated than PR Black Cherry, an ink that produces a very consistent, deep color. Ruby is also similar to Mont Blanc Bordeaux and Noodler's Tiananmen though MBB is a bit more pink and Tian is a bit more red. Ruby if anything almost looks a tad more brown. Still MBB and Ruby are close enough in color that I have on more than one occasion been uncertain which one was loaded in a pen.

 

One of my favorite ink characteristics is shading and Ruby is very good at that in a wide variety of pens. Most of my nibs write somewhat dry, unlike the pen used for the review, so that might contribute to the abundance of shading I've seen. MBB is good in this regard but it seems to result more from pooling than flow which is how they differ.

 

After using both inks for a couple of years, I am happy with either one in a pen. However, if you aren't interested in searching out the rare bottle on eBay and paying around $20 per bottle including shipping, MBB is a whole lot easier to procure.

 

This scan reminds me of PR Arabian Rose.

[Margana]

This scan reminds me of PR Arabian Rose.

 

Several months ago I exchanged email with Sam at Pendemonium about inks that are similar to Ruby. She didn't think Arabian Rose would be close enough for me. If you have it and would like to make a comparison, let me know by PM.

 

[macthemaths]

Thanks for posting this penguinmaster. I had a bottle of Penman Ruby when I was a kid and I had forgotten what it looked like.

 

(I can't believe that I used to spend my pocket money on things like ink and pens back then as well!)

[greencobra]

This scan reminds me of PR Arabian Rose.

No, not even close on my monitor.

 

If this Penman Ruby is like what I'm seeing on my screen, it looks decent. I've been using a lot of Noodler's Tiananmen recently which does indeed show more red but this Ruby is what I'm after on the color scale.

[encephalartos]

This scan reminds me of PR Arabian Rose.

No, not even close on my monitor.

 

If this Penman Ruby is like what I'm seeing on my screen, it looks decent. I've been using a lot of Noodler's Tiananmen recently which does indeed show more red but this Ruby is what I'm after on the color scale.

 

Well, now I've looked at both of them on paper. The values (darkness) of the inks are similar.

The bottle of Arabian Rose I have has more purple to it than Ruby. Ruby next to MB Bordeaux

look very similar to each other, so if you like the color of Ruby, you might like MB Bordeax,

which is likely to cost you less as it's not discontinued.

[garyc]

Well, now I've looked at both of them on paper. The values (darkness) of the inks are similar.

The bottle of Arabian Rose I have has more purple to it than Ruby. Ruby next to MB Bordeaux

look very similar to each other, so if you like the color of Ruby, you might like MB Bordeax,

which is likely to cost you less as it's not discontinued.

 

Thanks, I have MB Bordeaux and saw some Ruby on ebay, but now I don't feel the urge to buy it now. I can buy another bottle of port instead (similar colour etc)...

[Vaiar]

I have been writing with this ink using a Parker Frontier and cartridges for over a year now (I bought everything remaining in the the local store ~ 9 packages of Ruby Red) . I really do like the colour, but the ink does have its disadvantages to, say, normal blue or black Quinck, which I used previously. First, it clogged my pen completely last month, even though this pen sees action almost daily and normally quite a lot, as medical school requires quite some writing. I had to resort to soaking the feeding section overnight in some Rotring cleaning solution to get it unclogged. Second, and perhaps more annoying, the ink does not really "stick" to the paper. If the written surface is exposed to rubbing, for example in a bag or by 'hard' touching, you get blots / spots / streaks like the ink was not dry (even if you wrote the words two weeks ago).

The other inks in the Penman range (sapphire, emerald, ebony) which I have used (cartridges) shares these characteristics.

[Parker Ruby]

Oh, I miss for this ink (as you can probably see from my username!). I used to use it all the time in my work during the late 90s and into 2000. It's such a shame that it and the rest of the Penman range are no longer in production, but I've managed to hunt down someone selling a few bottles of the stuff, so when I get myself organised, I'll get some.

 

I've only just discovered this forum this afternoon, and have spent hours reading through it. People on here might be interested to know that I've scanned the various forms of my signature (seven altogether) and saved them to a PDF. I've then imported them into Acrobat as Stamps, so I can annotate documents with my signature. What's more, I've also changed the colour of the scans of my signature to closely match Parker Penman Ruby, and on this hardware calibrated monitor, it's pretty close to what I recall it looked like, and it matches very well the scans I've seen on here of that ink. My signatures also live as separate PNG files as well, so I can drop them into Word if I need to. I'm beginning to digress here.

 

Richard

[Shamouti]

If you keep the Penman Ruby for a long time on your pen, I've noticed the feed and section can discolor. Not only do I like the ink color and flow, but I was wondering if anyone else have had this occur with their pens. Have any of you had staining on your sections or feeds with Penman Ruby?

 

Shamouti

[Gran]

Thanks much for the review. That is a beautiful color of ink.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Very late ..... but got it today.....a burgundy, not a bright Ruby red...thankfully.

Is now because it's a wet ink, loaded in a  dry semi-flex, great balanced, thin, medium-long  Geha 725 F.

When cleaning out the dirty pen that came with the ink and the Parker ink stand, it was pink and brown.

Came with the post '97 Pelikan marbled blue 200 B.

[Mercian]

26 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Very late ..... but got it today.....a burgundy, not a bright Ruby red...thankfully.

 

When I first used it (over twenty years ago now!), I assumed that Parker had named this ink after the colour of the variety of fortified wine from Portugal that we Britishers call 'Ruby Port' (as opposed to 'Tawny Port').

https://www.wineomark.com/the-best-guide-to-ruby-port-everything-you-need-to-know/

 

In a similar vein, my reaction to the appearance of Diamine 'Oxblood' when I tried that ink was that it had been named for a traditional colour of various upmarket leather goods here (e.g. the leather on the benches in the House of Lords).

[Bo Bo Olson]

I didn't know about Port wine glasses.  I gave someone my two Glen-cairn glasses (which look like they could have made good Port glasses) which were great for nosing, but not as good as Neat glasses for tasting and enjoying of whiskey. One does need a wide enough mouth to let the whiskey fill the full mouth, not the ever so narrow rim of a Glencairn; Which funnels the whiskey deep and narrow, losing the broudness of the mouth for full taste of the whiskey.

Brooklyn bridge...of course I'll buy that, got a second one?  

 

I drink so little Port, I think I'm on my life time fifth bottle. Do have two unopened bottles in the fridge, waiting for the day.

 

What I know about oxblood, is it made fantastic slightly flexible,  long lasting flooring material over packed dirt.**

 

**Some of the oddities one learns writing a western.