Mystery Ink #42, #43 and #44. --- YES, 3 Inks!!!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Further ink-sploration

Chromas. I tried Ink #42 again, on coffee filters v. paper towel. The Melitta gave the brightest, most interesting chromas.







And everything on Tomoe River paper.



Not at all pleased with the blurriness of my images.

[Yazeh]

@Sailor Kenshin , not blurry at all. Quote elegant actually. And that chroma is delicious to my eyes

[Yazeh]

I changed the nib on the Jinaho to a nice fude nib, to eke some shading out of 42.
Yellow/orange 44 liked Apica. Less scratchy...
Grey 43, seemed still alright.

Apica.jpeg

[mreeveshp]

Sorry I'm a little behind, I had spent days cleaning out my Charlie so it would be super clean and the black ink that is always in it wouldn't contaminate this ink but as soon as I made the first stroke of the first word I heard I weird snick sound and it ended up being the tip of the right tine of the nib completely breaking off so one less pen for me haha.

Thanks
mreeveshp

[FredRydr]

... as soon as I made the first stroke of the first word I heard I weird snick sound and it ended up being the tip of the right tine of the nib completely breaking off....

[mreeveshp]

... as soon as I made the first stroke of the first word I heard I weird snick sound and it ended up being the tip of the right tine of the nib completely breaking off....

Oh it was a whole lot more than a face palm and a whole lot of words. The bad thing is I bought a cross brand new a few years ago as my first fountain pen and it already made me mad because the lacquer finish went from nice and smooth to very rough and just last week it did almost the same thing and it was hardly ever used because it just wrote too wide for me, so I've been going back and forth with cross and they said I should be getting a shipping label and claim to have it sent in since it definitely shouldn't have done that for how new it was and little it had been used but that was about $50 that I really didn't have to spend down the drain, at least the Charlie's are free with a bottle of ink

Thanks
mreeveshp

[Chrissy]

... as soon as I made the first stroke of the first word I heard I weird snick sound and it ended up being the tip of the right tine of the nib completely breaking off....

Oh it was a whole lot more than a face palm and a whole lot of words. The bad thing is I bought a cross brand new a few years ago as my first fountain pen and it already made me mad because the lacquer finish went from nice and smooth to very rough and just last week it did almost the same thing and it was hardly ever used because it just wrote too wide for me, so I've been going back and forth with cross and they said I should be getting a shipping label and claim to have it sent in since it definitely shouldn't have done that for how new it was and little it had been used but that was about $50 that I really didn't have to spend down the drain, at least the Charlie's are free with a bottle of ink

Thanks
mreeveshp

Sorry for your pen problems. That sounds like two pieces of really bad luck that you could do without.

[junglejim]

I will be doing the Mystery Inks reveal on Wednesday 15 June. That should hopefully give participants time for any final evaluations. If you need more time, please let me know!

All the Best.
---JJ

[mreeveshp]

Thank you Chrissy

My usual test with this horrible mead five star paper for 42 and 43, I'm cleaning out my metropolitan so I can start testing 44 hopefully tonight.

Thanks
mreeveshp

[Sailor Kenshin]

I'm writing with MI #42 in a Kokuyo Campus notebook, which is pretty slick paper. And I'm a southpaw 'hooker.' So far, no smearage. It seems well-lubricated so I'm wondering if it's a certain brand. My favorite remains the gray, 43, even with its hard starts; I just love the color. And I'm calling the orange ink 'Creamsicle.'

[Yazeh]

Sample writing on Tr 68 gr paper:

Mystery 42 - fude - Writing experience good.
Mystery 43 - Wing Sung with Pilot stub nib. (awful)
Mystery 44 - Lamy Safari - Medium. (scratchy)

I changed the nib of the wing sung to a Pilot stub. The result was awful. The writing experience was akin to writing with a far too long abandoned ballpoint in a drawer. For now I'm blaming it on the pen/nib combo, but mreeveshp's experience of # 43 skipping is making me wonder

TR.jpg

[Sailor Kenshin]

Oooo, Yazeh, nice shading with that fude!

[Yazeh]

Oooo, Yazeh, nice shading with that fude!

Fude is the King of Shading...
Here is another one for 44 on TR 68....

Scan is slightly orange. I would say, this is more like liquid honey with a touch of saffron. It definitely is not Apache Sunset...

44 - .jpeg

[mreeveshp]

Much lighter than the habanero I have, felt pretty scratchy to me and strained my eyes more than I would like though I do still like the color. I didn't smell any vanilla while writing like I did when I was filling the pen but I also have a fan on high right above me so it might have been dissipating the smell.

Thanks
mreeveshp

[Yazeh]

I'M a bit all over the place:
Here is a comparison of 42. Though the scan looks quite off...
The closest ink I have is Diamine Aurora borealis:
42- Comparaison .jpg

I don't have any idea of 42. But I am going for GRAF VON FABER-CASTELL DEEP SEA GREEN...due to the water resistance and slight dryness.
I'm formulating my guesses for 43, I would say, it could be Ink Institute - Cat at Dusk or Faber Castel Stone Grey - Dryness.
as for the 3rd I'm tempted between 3 inks. L'artisan Pastier, Bouton d'or/ De Atramentis Honey, though the scent doesn't correspond, one is peach scented the other honey. Distinct vanilla scent is the hallmark of KWZ inks, which I've never tried. This could be El Dorado.

[mreeveshp]

Comparison of the closest inks I have to #42 and #44

Thanks
mreeveshp

[Yazeh]

Finally #43 Comparison:

43- Comparaison.jpg

[Sailor Kenshin]

Cool comparison colors! I've been writing pen pal letters with these…someone had a guess about 43.

[Wile E Coyote]

Ok, here goes my pathetic review...

First my methodology: For consistency, I took a pen in current use. A Sailor 1911L with a 21k Music nib which had a Sailor Souboku cartridge in it. The pen was then U/S cleaned for 6 mins in distilled water then blown dry with a compressor. Each of the mystery inks was loaded by drawing the ink through the nib with a converter then expelled back into the sample bottle and redrawn back into the converter to ensure that there was no dilution due to residual water. The cleaning and refilling procedure was repeated for each mystery ink.

The pen was first written with on TRU RED office paper to ensure the nib was primed and used. The posted scans are from an Apica CD15 notebook.

The written review represents my first impression of each ink. I have to admit that I am not a regular user of any of the colors. Each of the inks was very well behaved with MI #42, Green, exhibiting the most lubrication, saturation and shading. MI #43 appeared to be almost Lilac, hence my comment "purpley", when I first looked at it in poor lighting. I realized the following day that it was a purely grey ink. My first impression name for #44 is Mustard, again could be due to poor lighting.

Anyone who uses Sailor nibs knows their tendency to be "toothy". MI #42 did not seem toothy in the least bit, but #43 & 44 did. With #44being the least lubricating of the three inks.

In all honesty, I think the inks look better in the scans than they do IRL. And since none are eye searing nor do I think there's any possibility that they will melt my pen, they will unfortunately not be candidates for permanent residence in my pen. If I were to choose a favorite of the three, that would go to #42.

[Yazeh]

Midori Paper
42- Jinhao 450 #6Fude/ Medium nibs
44 - Jinhao 450 #6 Fude / Lamy Safari medium
43 - Wing Sung 3013 - Pilot plumix nib...

Midori.jpg