The Great Ink Surprise, What Ink Surprised You MOST?
I'm just wondering, what ink did you not really expect to like; say in a sample, but you were blown away after using it first or few times and fell in love with?
I'm new to Fountain Pens and have been ordering lots of samples. I am hoping to gain insight from this in terms of expectations from say high vs. less expensive or what I consider plain (like a brown) vs vibrant (like Purple) colors.
Plus it'll be fun!!
Hey Joe, I really did not expect to like brown inks but they give a certain old world charm to my writing that I like.
Fountain Pen Sith Lord | Daakusaido | Everything in one spot
About 50 year old Waterman Black cartridges. Almost totally dried out so added a little tap water and they seem to be working flawlessly.
I didn't expect to like Waterman Violet - it looked much too bright, I previously preferred more dusky purples like J Herbin Poussiere de Lune - but it has become one of my favourite inks now. It has the great flow and reliability of Waterman inks generally, combined with decent shading and a colourful but not garish tone.
Noodler's El Lawrence. I opened the sample vial and my immediate thought was: "Ugh, I am not putting this evil-smelling oily gunk in my pens!" I tested it with a dip pen and thought it looked interesting, so I threw all caution to the winds and loaded it up into a wide nibbed italic pen (with little water) and was blown away. I really love the warm olivey (?) grey.
"What are moon-letters?" asked the hobbit full of excitement. He loved maps, as I have told you before; and he also loved runes and letters, and cunning handwriting, though when he wrote himself it was a bit thin and spidery.
Two colors come to mind. Noodlers Red-Black. At first I was thinking it was pretty close to Waterman's Havana Brown but in certian pens it defiently leans more towards well, a red-black. I like it because it is just diffrent enough to switch things up but still perfectly usable at work. The other color is Waterman serenity blue. It has always been described to me as a boring blue. I tried out a sample of it and loved the color.
Parker Washable Blue is the boring blue. And yet I did kind of like using it.Originally Posted by inky
"What are moon-letters?" asked the hobbit full of excitement. He loved maps, as I have told you before; and he also loved runes and letters, and cunning handwriting, though when he wrote himself it was a bit thin and spidery.
Noodler's Habanero which I bought on whim as I like the orange in Japanese Gel pens. It is very enjoyable to write with. so much so that I've now add Cayenne and Apache Sunset.
Noodler's RedBlack depends on the pen and paper.
Last edited by Bogon07; October 8th, 2012 at 05:19 PM.
sinistral hypergraphica - a slurry of ink
"Nothing means less than zero"
"Proper" greens - I'd used really dark green, like Diamine Evergreen, but was very surprised to like stuff like Emerald, and Light Green. Shame that green ink has a bit of an image problem in the UK!
Oh yeah, Mont Blanc Irish Green is a good one too.
Fountain Pen Sith Lord | Daakusaido | Everything in one spot
MB Carlo Collodi surprised me. I bought a bottle on a whim at my local pen shop because it was an LE ink, and they only had one bottle left. I didn't expect to like it because brown inks are usually ho hum to me, so it sat in its box, unused, for about three months. Then one day, I tried it. Wow. It is beautiful with a medium/broad italic nib. After that, I scrambled to find another source and bought two more bottles.
Draw close. Hold hands. Life is short. God is good. - Jan Karon
Enlighten me, Mr. Monkey, about the green ink stigma if you'd care to.
Didn't it have to do with spies or some cloak and dagger thing?
EDIT: Found it: http://www.tigerpens.co.uk/blog/gree...cs-and-spooks/
Fountain Pen Sith Lord | Daakusaido | Everything in one spot
Holy shit! I'm crazy! I knew it!
Oh, good find Ivan! In my youth I worked in a low ranking position in the civil service, and we received our fair share of green ink letters there - ours were from eccentrics rather than spies though
I've always been rather fond of the phrase “a letter ill-written in green ink” from I think Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim.
sinistral hypergraphica - a slurry of ink
"Nothing means less than zero"
Haven't used the Blue but I do like Quink black. I use it in a deskpen all the time.
I grew to hate Parker Washable Blue when I was at school, because it was the only ink we were allowed to use until we were old enough to be trusted with permanent black. But it's actually quite decent, if you like blue. The same thing as Waterman Florida Blue these days though in a worse bottle.
Green ink is traditionally the letter used to write rude and nasty letters, isn't it?
Last edited by snedwos; October 10th, 2012 at 04:57 PM.
"What are moon-letters?" asked the hobbit full of excitement. He loved maps, as I have told you before; and he also loved runes and letters, and cunning handwriting, though when he wrote himself it was a bit thin and spidery.
Diamine Misty Blue - it's got more poke than haar!
The Good Captain
(Gaston F Limoges)
"Meddler's 'Salamander' - almost as good as the real thing!"
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks