Mystery Ink #24

[Sailor Kenshin]

Amazing. My 'ink flower' had no black component!

[azkid]

Very interesting, Chrissy! That's a mystery for me too!

I tested with two pens, a Wing Sung 3001 EF and a Sheaffer Balance Jr. The first two are on Clairefontaine notebook with their premium paper.

Wing Sung 3001


Back of page with Balance Jr.


Here's some sample writing on Rhodia dot grid:


I didn't see any show through, feathering or bleed through.

The Wing Sung is a bit of a dry writer and the Balance Jr. is medium or medium wet with a super smooth nib. So I guess that is why I am getting a lighter color and why the ink seemed dry at first.

Upon using it some more, flow seems medium. No complaints. I will edit this with results from writing on more absorbent papers in a bit.

All of these I tested with the Junior.







To be fair I have seen inks do worse on the generic paper. Only a couple of my inks do better.

So, all told, I'm pretty pleased with the ink's performance and behavior. I like the shading and I'm a sucker for dark red inks. It is a big plus to me that it is partially water resistant and behaves well on the bullet journal paper as it means I could use it for work.

Not sure if I am in love yet (probably because of feeling meh after a long day of travel back home), but I do like this red ink and I would very seriously consider buying another bottle.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Now that I look at my ink flower again, the center is almost black...

[Pterodactylus]

Ok, let´s test how MI#24 behave on fountain pen unfriendly paper.

MI#24 Bad Paper - Front by Ptero Ptero

(Jinhao 159 - M italic ..... Mystery Ink #24 provided by azkid)


As you can see the results are not overwhelming, but this does not mean that MI#24 is a bad ink.
In only means that it can´t coop well with bad paper.
Also quite some good inks are sensitive to the paper quality.
Of course there are also inks which work better with bad paper (also non IG inks), or even perform extraordinary good no matter which paper you use (mainly IG inks).

Here is the back side of the paper:

MI#24 Bad Paper - Back by Ptero Ptero

As you can see we have quite a lot show and bleed through.

[Pterodactylus]

For comparison MI#24 on normal (quite cheap) but FP friendly paper:

MI#24 on Normal FP friendly paper by Ptero Ptero

(Jinhao 159 - M italic ..... Mystery Ink #24 provided by azkid)


The shading is awesome, I observerd no bleed through and also no significant show through.
It performed good on this paper.

[mreeveshp]

I really liked the mystery ink but I'm kind of a sucker for red colored inks. It did seem to write quite dry out of my Aurora that usually never writes very dry but the Aurora doesn't write nearly as wet as my Lamy Al-Star so in this case I might like the mystery ink better out of my Lamy. The ink from what I could tell dried pretty much right away. It is a nice burgundy red with decent shading and I would definitely buy a bottle and even keep it in a pen at all times.

I did get slight show through with the cheap paper but not much at all and with the Strathmore 90gsm the only way I could see it through the back was holding it up to light but it is a much thicker paper and a creamy color compared to a white paper

Thanks
Mreeveshp

Sent from my Note 8 using Tapatalk

[mreeveshp]

Here's a couple quotes I wrote with Mystery Ink #24 using the same Auarora pen and it is Staples 100% recycled paper which I have found to be very fountain pen friendly. Still wrote very dry that I could feel the nib on the paper much more than usual. I normally keep the Aurora inked up with Noodler's habanero and it glides along nicely it felt more like when I have used some Diamine inks.

Thanks
Mreeveshp

Sent from my Note 8 using Tapatalk

[Pterodactylus]

On Clairefontaine MI#24 perform really well


Quote Winston Churchill by Ptero Pterodactylus on DeviantArt

(Jinhao 159 - M italic ..... Mystery Ink #24 provided by azkid)

[mreeveshp]

I'm trying to figure out how to get the white balance so my pictures don't have that yellow hue and then I will repost them

Thanks
Mreeveshp

Sent from my Note 8 using Tapatalk

[mreeveshp]

Here's my pictures again in a better light still isn't as good as I want them but I think it shows the ink better than my previous uploads

Thanks
Mreeveshp

Sent from my Note 8 using Tapatalk

[azkid]

My sad mini sketches. The ink is a much darker red on this more absorbent paper. I noticed the same with earlier Mystery Inks like Kaweco Sunrise Orange.

The nib felt somewhat lubricated on the page. Drawing and writing were quite pleasant. The same cannot be said about all inks in this book. No feathering or bleed through. Although several other inks I have tried have no issue with either.

Pleasantly surprised. I may have to do more sketches.

[azkid]

OK one more...

[mreeveshp]

On Clairefontaine MI#24 perform really well


Quote Winston Churchill by Ptero Pterodactylus on DeviantArt

(Jinhao 159 - M italic ..... Mystery Ink #24 provided by azkid)

The color and shading look beautiful

Thanks
Mreeveshp

Sent from my Note 8 using Tapatalk

[Pterodactylus]

Thanks Mreeveshp

Another quote:


Quote Lao Tzu by Ptero Pterodactylus on DeviantArt

(Jinhao 159 - M italic ..... Mystery Ink #24 provided by azkid)

[Voiren]

I think this colour looks lighter and redder in sunlight than it does in my evening LED lighting.

Here's the two tests side by side in daylight. I added a new line to the Tomoe River - it definitely did get darker in the pen.

IMG_20190317_133143_edit.jpg

I was trying to add a photo of the two (wrong) guesses I had to go alongside the mystery ink, but one of them photographed the same colour as the mystery ink when it really isn't, so I'll have to try that again...

[mreeveshp]

I just realized for my writing tests I put 24lb copy paper it was actually HP 32lb laser jet. I don't know if that makes a difference but I just wanted to fix my mistake. And I had a slight grammar problem in my writing I wrote "have" instead of "has" so that's an oops on my part.

I'm going to try to do some more writing tests today because I noticed last night it looks like the color has darkened a little in the pen and it seems like it has got somewhat smoothed to write with. I just wish I had some better paper.

I have also noticed a difference in the color when I look at it under the LED lighting in the room with my desk compared to rooms that I have more natural light like near my bay window.

Thanks
Mreeveshp

Sent from my Note 8 using Tapatalk

[Voiren]

We've started mentioning ink names, so I'll put my comparators in. These are both wrong, btw!

I originally was reminded of the two Franklin-Christoph inks I'd just tried, in terms of the flatness of the ink pool and the way it shaded. I also thought of some colour in between the two Noodler's Black Swan in xx Roses inks. (This is my only Noodler's ink, so I don't have anything else to compare with myself, but it sounds like the English roses are often brownish).

So I compared directly with F-C Sweet Maroon (which I knew was a bit too light red) and Black Swan in Australian Roses (which is way too pink, and also smells much stronger).

Also a water resistance test - I put a water droplet on the crisscross and small scribbles, let it sit a bit then blotted it. I also put one on darker diagonal scribbles and then let it run off the edge of the page.

IMG_20190318_131438_edit.jpg

The Sweet Maroon disappears most in the water. They all run pink. The mystery ink definitely felt more lubricated than either of the others (Chinese nibs in use in pens I've not inked before, so inconsistencies may abound).

Here's another writing sample, this time on Q-connect bank paper. Works fine here - I've only had issues with the wettest inks and pens on this. Could use both sides. Excuse angle, it showed the colour best.

IMG_20190318_164811_edit.jpg

These were both taken in daylight.

I also just did a lunchtime sketch with Diamine Rustic Brown - that is a similar tone but noticeably browner. (Not tested that for water resistance, and I'm a few days behind in my photo editing!)

[Scooby921]

I'm slow. Will try to have writing samples done tonight and hopefully some pictures posted tomorrow. I've been bouncing between MI #24 and Parker Quink Blue-Black at work for the last week in an attempt to compare MI #24 to a known quantity for performance. I've decided to call PQBB my "baseline" average ink. On a 1 to 10 scale for flow, lubrication, shading, feathering, etc. I'm going to call it a 5, right down the middle. Then I can more easily rate and rank the performance of MI #24 (and other inks).


Thus far my findings pretty much agree with everyone. It gets darker after sitting in the pen for a few days. Once it gets darker it then shades much better and more pleasantly. Feels pretty well lubricated. Flows very well out of both pens I've inked. I haven't done a good dry-time test or water permanence test.

[Pterodactylus]

And my last visual contribution to MI#24.
Unfortunately the remaining ink only lasted for one sketch and the couple of lines written.


Quote Miss Piggy by Ptero Pterodactylus on DeviantArt

(Jinhao 159 - M italic ..... Mystery Ink #24 provided by azkid)


For me MI#24 is a really appealing ink which behaves on FP friendly ink really good.
It is also a good shader, I really like it.

[Scooby921]

Ok, I finally got pics uploaded.

I wrote ink reviews for MI #24 using two different papers. One is the cheap copy paper at the office. The other is a thicker inkjet paper naimitsu and I have at home. I also did some quick scribbles in my Apica and Clairefontaine notebooks.

Overall I think MI #24 is a very pleasant ink on fountain pen compatible paper. On cheap copy paper it is horrible. Worse than my benchmark ink (Parker Quink Blue-Black) by a noticeable margin. I happen to have a couple identical pens so I put PQBB and MI #24 in them and MI #24 spreads and feathers more on cheap paper. If you are forced to use office copy paper at work I definitely wouldn't look to MI #24 as a reasonable ink because your letters and words look terrible, and if you have small handwriting like I do you end up with a lot of blobs instead of letters.

This is MI #24 on cheap copy paper (Staples 20#). The feathering looks bad, but the spread of the line width doesn't look terrible until you see how well it behaves on good paper.


Same pen, MI #24 on better paper (Boise 24#).



Beyond the feathering and spread there is also noticeable difference in dry times and permanence. On the cheap paper the ink is absorbed and it is dry almost instantly. It took just over 1 second for the ink to dry and not smear, and this was coming out of a wet Visconti Dreamtouch nib. Moving to the Boise paper the dry time went up to the 10-15 second range depending on how heavy the hand and wet the line stroke. Water permanence, while surprising at the time, makes sense after thinking. The cheap Staples copy paper absorbent paper locks the ink in and is very, very good. It retains the lines and most of the color. The nicer, thicker Boise paper isn't absorbing the ink as well and it mostly washes off.

As others have noted the ink does have decent shading and can be a little bit pink out of a drier nib. I prefer the darker tones I get out of the wetter nib in my Visconti, but here's what it looks like out of a little drier and wider broad cursive italic in my Nakaya. This is on the better Boise paper.




Here are the review pages.







And here are some scribbles on Apica and Clairefontaine paper.






Color-wise I'm not sure what to compare it to. I have a couple reds, but I don't use red inks very often. The appearance out of the Nakaya cursive italic nib on the Clairefontaine paper reminds me of Private Reserve Fiesta Red, but I recall that being a lighter colored and drier ink than MI #24. The darker tones from the wet Visconti nib remind me a lot of the home-brew red mix I created a few years ago which was a combination of J. Herbin Rouge Hematite, Private Reserve Fiesta Red, and Montblanc Seasons Greetings Brown. I like MI #24. It doesn't amaze me and make me love it, but the performance is good and the color is my preferred darker shade of red.