Has anyone used Bungubox First Love Blue?

I tried using the search function, but can't seem to find any mention of this particular ink on this forum. I've been wanting to try it, but the cheapest I've been able to find it for has been $44.50 for 30 ml on jetpens.com. I've actually found it on eBay for up to $75 plus $25 shipping from Japan.

According to a couple of online accounts, it's supposed to be somewhat like, or inspired by, or an homage to the now unobtainium variant yclept Parker Penman Sapphire Blue. I recently encountered some of the latter in the wild, in the form of words laid down on paper. It was, perhaps, the most electrifying blue I'd ever seen, probably even higher voltage than BSB, which I've had my innings with, and consequently now cower in fear whenever I even think about it.

If Bungubox First Love Blue is a genuine, electrifying, knock-yer-eyeballs out ink, but well-behaved and not destructive of pens, pen cases, clothing, furniture or structural elements of one's dwelling place, I think that would probably justify the obscenely high price they're asking for it. I'd have to skip meals for a few days, but it would be a worthwhile sacrifice. Before I try anything that drastic, however, I'd like to know if anyone on this forum has tried it, and can tell me anything about the experience. If it's just a very pretty blue, I have Blue Velvet and Kon-Peki and a few others as well, and can save myself the expense.

Thank you!

I had a bottle and found it to be pretty but nothing exceptional. I also have a bottle of the original Penman Sapphire and can tell you that it is NOT brighter or more electrifying than Baystate Blue. PPS was one of the first 'modern' saturated inks and therefore really stood out from its competitors 30 years ago. Now, not so much in fact a very good modern equivalent is Monteverde Horizon Blue but your bottle of Blue Velvet is very close. Bungubox First Love, to me , looks the same as PPS. FPN did an exhaustive tests for PPS equivalents here

No I haven't tried it as there are plenty of other blue inks that are similar enough that don't have such a sky high price tag.

Sounds like I can probably save myself a few dollars, although I don't think PPS looks very much like Blue Velvet, looking at them side by side on paper. The PPS seems to have a bit of a purply cast to it, whereas Blue Velvet is more of a pure blue.

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Originally Posted by Chrissy

No I haven't tried it as there are plenty of other blue inks that are similar enough that don't have such a sky high price tag.

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Thanks! By the way, did you ever try mixing the Faux Penman Sapphire #9 that dcwaites over at FPN wrote about back in 2015? He said the recipe was 4 parts Diamine Majestic Blue, 3 parts Diamine Sapphire, and 8 parts distilled water. It sure looked almost identical in his scans to what he was using as his benchmark, although the scans themselves didn't quite look like the specimen of PPS I recently saw, which was more "sapphire" (a slightly purplish blue) in color.

I have some bottles of Bungubox Sapphire, bought way back when they were launching some inks on Kickstarter. They were very reasonably priced then. It is a very lovely bright blue, and I have it filed close to PPS in my colour swatch books, however it has an ever-so-slightly more greenish hint to it. It is still very bright but not exact. However, I expect you wouldn’t tell the difference unless you wrote with them in the same pen, on the same paper, adjacent to each other.

I also wonder whether the age of my swatches has made a difference ie that over time one has been affected more than the other. My swatches are kept away from light but time will and does change some inks more than others.

In terms of whether it is worth paying current prices, only you can determine. I’m very happy to have some bottles because, in addition to the beautiful blue, it’s behaves impeccably on paper. But I have other Japanese blue inks that are close and that I like equally, so probably wouldn’t buy more.

An ink you might like to consider is Berlin Notebook No. 1.

https://berlin-notebook.com/product/...ook-blue-no-1/

It’s a stunning blue, although can be a bit naughty on some papers. Macchiato Man and Mountain of Ink have reviewed it; they’re the only reviewers I consider. It is a high sheening, very saturated ink so if you prefer an equally lovely blue, with less sheen, and that behaves better, they do a Berlin No.1 Black Label version.

https://berlin-notebook.com/product/...1-black-label/


The inks are 11.99€ and 12.99€ respectively. The ink ships from Germany but IIRC international shipping was quite reasonable.

Or maybe I'll just skip a few meals, lose some weight, and pony up for some Bungubox First Love after all. Who can resist the lure of first love?

Decisions, decisions...

Ugh. I just looked at the PPS and the Blue Velvet side by side, and decided that they look much closer than I thought. The PPS didn't seem to have even a hint of purple to it. Weird. Maybe it's the light, or has something to do with the late hour... maybe the PPS just looked different because of the inks it was next to in the letter I received, and I remembered it that way. Or maybe I'm just going mad. Bwahaha. I'd better get some sleep.

Fifteen minutes later: I looked again, and now they look different again. Under the same light. I really, really need to get some sleep...

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Originally Posted by calamus

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Originally Posted by Chrissy

No I haven't tried it as there are plenty of other blue inks that are similar enough that don't have such a sky high price tag.

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Thanks! By the way, did you ever try mixing the Faux Penman Sapphire #9 that dcwaites over at FPN wrote about back in 2015? He said the recipe was 4 parts Diamine Majestic Blue, 3 parts Diamine Sapphire, and 8 parts distilled water. It sure looked almost identical in his scans to what he was using as his benchmark, although the scans themselves didn't quite look like the specimen of PPS I recently saw, which was more "sapphire" (a slightly purplish blue) in color.

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I did mix that blend from FPN when DCWaites wrote about it. Sadly I don't remember if it was version 9 or not although it was Diamine Majestic Blue and Sapphire Blue. I found it an excellent substitute for PPS if I dialled down on the amount of added water. If you wanted to dial down on the purple you could just use slightly less Sapphire.

I have PPS so don't need to try and find it or specifically search for any inks like it and that's why I haven't tried BB First Love. In fact, co-incidentally, I was using PPS yesterday in a letter to a penpal on here and it was behaving badly in a pen that I usually have filled with it. Had to do a bit of pen cleaning to improve the flow. :(

I have a bottle of it.

It's not a bad ink, but you can get the real stuff for not much more!

First of all, I don't think it's a particularly great match. The saturation is there, but it's somewhat brighter of a blue than PPS(and for reference I do have several bottles of the real stuff).

I like Scribe Indigo better as an ink specifically marketed as a PPS clone. Scribe inks are made and sold by the guy who developed the Penman inks when he was working for Parker. Across the board comparing side-by-side with Penman, I find the hues to be a close match buy the saturation cranked back a bit presumably to make them a bit better behaved.

Also, of the Bungubox inks, I've really fallen in love with Clown Tears Ruby. Although I've not seen this confirmed, it certainly looks like a clone of Penman Ruby to me...

Scribe Indigo is the PPS clone, but it is not as saturated as PPS, nor does it have the issues that PPS had. It is a great ink. I have also tried Scribe Garnet and Jamocha. Both are excellent.

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Originally Posted by DrPenfection

Scribe Indigo is the PPS clone, but it is not as saturated as PPS, nor does it have the issues that PPS had. It is a great ink. I have also tried Scribe Garnet and Jamocha. Both are excellent.

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I agree: they are all excellent :) Indigo certainly doesn't have the issues that PPS had or still has if, like me, you currently use it.

It's been a few months since I've used PPS, but right now I have Akkerman #5 Shocking Blue in one of my 149s. As I understand things, #5 is the same as Majestic Blue. In any case, it has a lot of the "feel" of PPS including the red sheen. It also has some of the temperament of PPS, including the tendency to hard start if the pen is uncapped and unused for say 20 seconds.

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Originally Posted by bunnspecial

It's been a few months since I've used PPS, but right now I have Akkerman #5 Shocking Blue in one of my 149s. As I understand things, #5 is the same as Majestic Blue. In any case, it has a lot of the "feel" of PPS including the red sheen. It also has some of the temperament of PPS, including the tendency to hard start if the pen is uncapped and unused for say 20 seconds.

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For me personally I wouldn't risk any of my Montblanc piston filling ink windows with the inks you mentioned, although I would be happy to use any of them in any other pens that had easier cleaning access.

My Parker 45 Consort Stub has always been filled with PPS but recently the combination is really poor. It never starts and even after being dipped in water it railroads and skips parts of or whole letters while trying to write. I've cleaned it out with water and refilled it from a bottle by using a converter despite the fact that I've been using up old carts of PPS reconstituted to original levels. If I haven't fixed it the next time I use it when writing a letter it's going to be completely dismantled, whizzed in the ultrasonic and filled with something else. I'm starting to suspect that the expert who once advised me that PPS has the ability to degrade plastic collectors and feeds could be right. :(

IMHO these highly saturated blues need a wet writing pen and my Parker 45 isn't fitting that requirement. The PP ink range was originally designed for use in modern Parker Duofolds.

I'm glad to see multiple mentions of the Scribe Indigo and other inks, especially since their inception was at the hands of the Penman creator. I also have Scribe Malachite, which is a bright, vivid green with nice shading, that is also enjoyable. We all have to keep in mind that any PPS we might be using today has likely had at least a modicum of evaporation, and hence will look and behave differently even to when it was new, much less putting it side-by-side with brand new (other) inks.

We certainly have a lot of options these days!

We certainly do have a lot of options these days. :) :thumb:

Aside from my celluloid MBs(I love my silver ring 149, but it's not an inexpensive pen to handle too casually) I don't worry too much about what I feed my pens aside from known stainers like BSB.

I love writing with 149s and I love writing with vivid, saturated blues, so I'll take my chances on anything bad happening. So far it hasn't.

In the time I've had one of my favorite 149s-a 70s one-piece barrel, TT 14K B nib-it's had almost nothing other than PPS when it's been inked.

If there are plastic feed issues, the beauty of this one is that it has an ebonite feed so I don't have to worry about that...

The one I now have inked with Akkerman Shocking Blue was an inexpensive one($150) I bought as a Fixer-Upper, and I had even less guilt over it considering that there was already some blue staining in the ink window, although it cleaned up easily enough when I had the pen apart. This one does have a first gen plastic feed...

If taking them apart is necessary to clean the ink windows then that's something I can't do so keeping those windows clean is my only option.