Parker Penman Sapphire

[dneal]

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[manoeuver]

blue ink

[Chrissy]

Nice blue ink :)

[dneal]

blue ink

Haters gonna hate.

[whichwatch]

"Blue Ink". "Nice blue ink".

Industry changing blue ink. Your words in your "Comments" section are spot on.

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=74237&d=1671976888

[Chrissy]

OK then. Very nice blue ink. :) I love the colour but I use it in my Parker 45 Coronet and it always clogs up and won't start, so it needs the right pen.

[dneal]

Industry changing blue ink.

This is the significance, I think. It's nostalgia of a sort, an acknowledgement of an innovation or benchmark.

[dneal]

A member raised concern about whether this was genuine or counterfeit via PM, which I think is reasonable. Given the proliferation of similar inks, it wouldn't be surprising to find many unscrupulous sellers across the internet filling old bottles with similar shades - many of which have become indistinguishable. There's also the simple fact that it is a consumable; and will deplete eventually.

I've had that bottle, purchased NOS, for many years, before the Blue Velvets and Sailor Sapphires were produced. I confess to having a "cake" (having and eating) problem with it - much as I do with MB's Red Chalk. I rarely open it, and have actualy filled a pen with it perhaps twice. I was surprised it hadn't been reviewed here, and figured "what the hell, it's Christmas..."

I've compared the contents of that bottle with Penman Sapphire cartridges, and have no doubt to it's authenticity.

Bear in mind that this review (like my others) are done with no consideration of "professionalism". The scans are from a several years old HP multifunction device, and the photos are snaps with my iphone under an LED desk lamp. There are professional, color-corrected, and whatever wizardry people use samples elsewhere on the internet I suspect. These reviews are just for fun, to generate some activity, and to fill gaps in Chrissy's excellent indexing.

[dneal]

74241

[Sailor Kenshin]

It's said that Monteverde Horizon Blue comes close. Maybe. I have some in a Lamy Al-Star now.

[whichwatch]

Monteverde Horizon Blue and Sailor Sapphire are among my favorite inks. I have one almost empty and one full bottle of PPS. I’ll probably never use the full bottle but haven’t been able to convince myself to sell it, because if I missed it, it would be kind of irreplaceable.

Why would I miss something I don’t use? Just one of the few things in this hobby that don’t make sense LOL

[dneal]

Great. Now I'm going to have to get a bottle of Horizon Blue.

The cake struggle is real. I use MB's Lapis in lieu of Penman Sapphire, and have 2 1/2 bottles - which translates to 1 1/2 bottles. I won't want to use the last bottle, because then I won't have any.

[whichwatch]

@dneal, if you want a sample of Horizon Blue, message me your address and it will be on its way. I probably even have a partial small (30 ml) bottle of it I can send.

Rick

[dneal]

Very generous and much appreciated, but too late. I had a moment of weakness and ordered that and some of the Scribe indigo.

*sigh*

;)

[manoeuver]

blue ink

Haters gonna hate.

I don't hate blue ink but I don't really care about it either.

Penman Sapphire is more interesting to me for the hype around it.
I still suspect there was one pen influencer who ignited the enthusiasm for the ink.
Not sure when or who it might have been. The Google ngram search was unhelpful, I looked.

I wonder if it would be nearly as popular if it was still in production, I'd guess not.
I think it's interesting that a healthy handful of inkmakers took a pretty hard swing at replicating it, but there's no consensus on what the best PS replacement is.

for those of my pen friends here who love Penman Sapphire: I hope you have some!

[Chrissy]

The best copy I used for PPS was "Faux Parker Penman Sapphire #9" by DCWaites on the other place. Diamine Majestic Blue 4 parts and Diamine Sapphire Blue 3 parts. He also recommended adding some water but I hardly added any.
As I have some PPS in a bottle and in cartridges I only ever made a small amount for testing but thought it was very close at that time.

[dneal]

blue ink

Haters gonna hate.

I don't hate blue ink but I don't really care about it either.

Penman Sapphire is more interesting to me for the hype around it.
I still suspect there was one pen influencer who ignited the enthusiasm for the ink.
Not sure when or who it might have been. The Google ngram search was unhelpful, I looked.

I wonder if it would be nearly as popular if it was still in production, I'd guess not.
I think it's interesting that a healthy handful of inkmakers took a pretty hard swing at replicating it, but there's no consensus on what the best PS replacement is.

for those of my pen friends here who love Penman Sapphire: I hope you have some!

I don't care about a lot of inks either. One way to tell is that I don't "thank" or even comment. Most times I don't even click on the thread. Grays bore me. Olive Greens? meh. Shimmer? There are a bunch.

Yet you care so little about blue ink that this one, labeled in the title; it caused you to post about how much you don't care. I think you're protesting too much.

That's not necessarily criticism though, and I understand. This ink can easily fall in the category of snobbery, or bandwagon, or pretentiousness, or a whole lot of other negative categories. I have a bias against Montblanc. Especially the gaudier limited editions. I love Porsche, and briefly owned a 3 year old certified Cayman I picked up for under $30k. I got rid of it because of the attention. I got rid of it because of people who felt it necessarily to mispronounce the brand in correction of my mispronunciation. Pretentious Americans like to say "por-shuh", to correct "porsh". In German it's really "porsh-uh", with the "uh" so subtle it's almost imperceptible to a not-native speaker. Then there's the differences in German dialect... but I digress.

Clearly it's desirable for the color itself. Penman Ebony or Mocha don't command high prices, or prompt replicas (or even nostalgic reference). I do like its properties - the range of shading more than the sheen, and the hues within that range. No one else has to, and that's the thing about aesthetics - they're personal.

"Haters gonna hate" is just the 21st century version of "you can't please everyone". There's also another proverb something along the lines of "if you don't have anything nice to say..."

[mizgeorge]

I think it says a lot when an ink is known by just its initials.

I'm on the love side. I've shared out a lot of it over the years, and will doubtless continue to do so, but I try to always have at least one unopened bottle around.

[kazoolaw]

WARNING-HERESY: back when PPS was hard, but not impossible, to find I diluted it with ordinary Parker Blue ink. To my eyes no noticeable difference, no clogging, no crusty deposits on the bottle to this day.

Now if I could find unopened bottles of DuPont Bleu Nuit and Omas Roma Blue!

[manoeuver]

I don't care about a lot of inks either. One way to tell is that I don't "thank" or even comment. Most times I don't even click on the thread. Grays bore me. Olive Greens? meh. Shimmer? There are a bunch.

Yet you care so little about blue ink that this one, labeled in the title; it caused you to post about how much you don't care. I think you're protesting too much.

That's not necessarily criticism though, and I understand. This ink can easily fall in the category of snobbery, or bandwagon, or pretentiousness, or a whole lot of other negative categories. I have a bias against Montblanc. Especially the gaudier limited editions. I love Porsche, and briefly owned a 3 year old certified Cayman I picked up for under $30k. I got rid of it because of the attention. I got rid of it because of people who felt it necessarily to mispronounce the brand in correction of my mispronunciation. Pretentious Americans like to say "por-shuh", to correct "porsh". In German it's really "porsh-uh", with the "uh" so subtle it's almost imperceptible to a not-native speaker. Then there's the differences in German dialect... but I digress.

Clearly it's desirable for the color itself. Penman Ebony or Mocha don't command high prices, or prompt replicas (or even nostalgic reference). I do like its properties - the range of shading more than the sheen, and the hues within that range. No one else has to, and that's the thing about aesthetics - they're personal.

"Haters gonna hate" is just the 21st century version of "you can't please everyone". There's also another proverb something along the lines of "if you don't have anything nice to say..."

I do care about Penman Sapphire! I think it's a top 5 fascinating and nuanced corner of the hobby.

It's at the intersection of highly specialized product development, unobtanium dynamics, mimetic desire and influencers, supply/demand pricing and taste-- at least.

the fact I don't use much blue ink puts me in an odd neutral stance about PS as a product. As a phenomenon I think it's remarkable, as an ink I don't have an opinion anyone should give a shit about.

note I said 'blue ink' which is as neutral a post as I was able to concoct.

[Prettypenguin]

I love the color, but my Duofold hated the Penman inks. Royal/cobalt blues are my favorite. I need to try all the different takes on it and see if they work better than the original in my pens. I liked your review, dneal.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I think it says a lot when an ink is known by just its initials.

I'm on the love side. I've shared out a lot of it over the years, and will doubtless continue to do so, but I try to always have at least one unopened bottle around.

I always thought that meant Post Post Script. 😉

[welch]

blue ink

Blue ink that glows.

[welch]

Nice blue ink :)

Great glowing blue ink that still surprises...and I have used it for about 15 years.

[karmachanic]

Scribe Indigo?

[dneal]

Reportedly that's the reissue, from the same Parker chemist/employee/whatever.

[Jon Szanto]

Scribe Indigo?

I've used it and it is a very good parallel ink, with actual roots in the development and making of PPS.

You know, PPS is one of those perennial topics that pops back up. This thread is from just a couple of years ago (https://fpgeeks.com/forum/showthread.php/32846-Penmen-ink-duration), and in it I have a comment that mentions an article (actually 2 parts, in two issues) that is an interview with the creator of the ink, which appeared in the PCA "Pennant" in 2020. Whether or not one or more influencers had anything to do with it, the Penman series was certainly seen as a 'high-end' ink at the time, and likely had it's own cachet right from the start. That the Sapphire is the one that has caught the most attention over the years is certainly due to it's visual aspects.

[DrPenfection]

Excellent review, dneal. Thank you for taking the time to do this. And I, for one, appreciate your methodology for reviews. I have never had the pleasure of having a bottle of Parker Penman Sapphire, although I would have thoroughly enjoyed it since it is one of my favorite colors. I have tried a bunch of others that are similar in color and even tried making my own.

Then I found Scribe Indigo.

As likely everyone here knows, Scribe inks were developed by Dr. Leighton Davies-Smith, one (or maybe the only) developers of Parker Penman inks. At least that is he told me when I reached out to him a few years ago. Very nice man.

I have purchased a couple of bottles and have found it to be excellent ink and very, very close to Sapphire in color. I have not had any problems with the Scribe ink that others have reported with the Parker Penman Sapphire (i.e. clogging). I also purchased the Garnet and Jamocha and love them both.

I would be interested in your comments on Indigo when you receive it, dneal.

Edit: It appears that Chrissy did a review on Scribe Indigo here on fpgeeks. https://fpgeeks.com/forum/showthread.php/33323-Ink-Review-Scribe-Indigo

[Jon Szanto]

...developed by Dr. Leighton Davies-Smith, one (or maybe the only) developers of Parker Penman inks.

Yes, I think it was pretty much his project at Parker.

[dneal]

I would be interested in your comments on Indigo when you receive it, dneal.

I got it maybe a week ago? It was already in the index, and Chrissy's review is thorough.

Bottom line, similar color and I agree with "not as concentrated" - but that could be due to age. It's another "close enough".

I've never had the drying up problem with PPS.

[bunnspecial]

Thanks for the great review!

This ink was discontinued when I was not quite yet a teenager(I think if the 2000 date is correct) and even though I knew of fountain pens, this sort of detail wasn't on my mind. I took a serious interest in FPs when I was in graduate school, around 2011/2012, and I heard of this ink, found out what it was, thought I'd like it, but spending that much on a bottle of ink even then was incomprehensible to my mind and paltry grad student stipend. I had a local source for PR inks, and after many suggested American Blue as a similar ink, I walked out with a bottle of that along with a Lamy 2000.

When I was fortunate enough to acquire a bottle of it a couple of years ago-at a not small cost-I fell in love. I've since had the chance to acquire several more bottles, several put back unopened but one "home" and one "work" bottle for use. I have enough that I've passed around the love and given a few samples here and there.

For me, though, one of the pure bliss FP moments is when I load a B nibbed 149 with it and just write. Actually to me it goes with one particular 149-the first one of the type I bought. Now my Italic Edge is loaded with it, which might be a bit too much for the pen, but oh well it's still fun.

So thanks again dneal for sharing your thoughts on this legendary ink.

[bunnspecial]

Re: the Scribe inks-

I bought the full set as soon as I learned of their availability. Learning just who Leighton was, I reached out to him and he offered a Zoom meeting. We spent an hour talking ink chemistry in general(which was the whole reason I wanted to pick his brain if he was willing), and actually not that much about the Scribe inks specifically. Among other things, though, we did talk about Solv-X :)

He did mention to me that Penman inks were really intended to be paired with the new Duofold. I love and use Duofolds, particularly the first gen ones, and if you have you know that they are notorious for dry-out thanks to the vent under the clip(my newest one-probably late 2010s production-lacks a cap vent).

He confirmed, however, that he'd intentionally formulated the Scribe inks to be less concentrated than their original Penman counterparts to make them less fussy. My experience is that it does seem to have worked, and my Duofolds seem to handle the Scribe inks better than they do Penman. With many of them, I don't notice a big difference compared to their Penman counterpart unless I'm looking side-by-side at writing samples. The only one to me where it's really noticeable is Emerald/Malachite, where Emerald can shade black out of a wetter pen(and on good paper) and Malachite just seems to hit a really dark green under the same conditions. If one really wants the black effect, there's a PR ink whose name escapes me that's pretty darn close although not quite a color match.

There's always a bottle of Indigo on my desk at home, and I use it without much thought. Penman gets a lot more careful consideration. I actually should order another bottle or two of indigo...

[Chrissy]

Visitors to the Space City Pen Club Zoom meeting were also treated to a talk by Leighton that included much about his Parker Penman series of inks that were originally designed to be used with modern Duofolds. I love the colour of PPS ink but think that now it's gone Scribe Indigo will easily fill the hole left in the market. At least for US buyers. I remain unsure about the availability of Scribe inks for International users.

[blopplop]

I've got an old partial bottle PPS. Gonna have to break it out now. :)

[USG]

I bought all the Penman inks when they came out. I still have some Penman Sapphire left in a bottle as well as some unused cartridges. I used it in my Pearl and Black Duofold. Never liked the color. Anyone who's had the real Penman Sapphire and has washed it out of a pen knows that it is a very saturated turquoise ink, which at the time was a big turnoff. I've mellowed over the years but never used up the bottle or the cartridges. Omas Roma 2000 was more to my liking. A lot of the writing samples I see around are not the original color, so there's that.

I have some pics but I can't get them to post.

75160

I didn't like the Green at all and never used it. I put it in the back of my ink drawer and forgot about it. This is what it is now.

75162

[Chrissy]

I bought all the Penman inks when they came out. I still have some Penman Sapphire left in a bottle as well as some unused cartridges. I used it in my Pearl and Black Duofold. Never liked the color. Anyone who's had the real Penman Sapphire and has washed it out of a pen knows that it is a very saturated turquoise ink, which at the time was a big turnoff. I've mellowed over the years but never used up the bottle or the cartridges. Omas Roma 2000 was more to my liking. A lot of the writing samples I see around are not the original color, so there's that.

I have some pics but I can't get them to post.
To post your pics from your computer go read FAQ^^^ Reading and Posting messages > Attachments and Images (http://fpgeeks.com/forum/faq.php?faq=vb3_reading_posting#faq_vb3_attachment s) and use the Manage Attachments feature.

[USG]

I bought all the Penman inks when they came out. I still have some Penman Sapphire left in a bottle as well as some unused cartridges. I used it in my Pearl and Black Duofold. Never liked the color. Anyone who's had the real Penman Sapphire and has washed it out of a pen knows that it is a very saturated turquoise ink, which at the time was a big turnoff. I've mellowed over the years but never used up the bottle or the cartridges. Omas Roma 2000 was more to my liking. A lot of the writing samples I see around are not the original color, so there's that.

I have some pics but I can't get them to post.
To post your pics from your computer go read FAQ^^^ Reading and Posting messages > Attachments and Images (http://fpgeeks.com/forum/faq.php?faq=vb3_reading_posting#faq_vb3_attachment s) and use the Manage Attachments feature.

Thanks, I'm getting the hang of it.. :)

[Chrissy]

I have some pics but I can't get them to post.
To post your pics from your computer go read FAQ^^^ Reading and Posting messages > Attachments and Images (http://fpgeeks.com/forum/faq.php?faq=vb3_reading_posting#faq_vb3_attachment s) and use the Manage Attachments feature.

Thanks, I'm getting the hang of it.. :)
You certainly did. Great. :)

[TSherbs]

That's kyber crystal in that bottle.

[Chrissy]

If I had that bottle of Emerald "crud" I would be trying so hard to reconstitute it into decent ink. :)

[USG]

If I had that bottle of Emerald "crud" I would be trying so hard to reconstitute it into decent ink. :)

The funny thing about the Emerald was that it was tightly capped and that Pic represents the contents of a full bottle. I'm sure I tried it when I first got it and didn't like it, but I don't remember. I didn't care for the Ruby either. That one didn't evaporate like the green. I tried the Ruby recently and didn't like it, again.

That was a long time ago. Back then I was into the Mocha. Used up one bottle and have a partial one left.

[Chrissy]

It sounds odd but maybe it was just the differences between the chemical contents. :noidea: