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What’s Your AllTime Favorite Ink?

Not fixed on one color, but my two favorite brands are Diamine and Iroshizuko.
I have a red pen that I bought for work. I bought some Diamine ink to go with it. As soon as the original cartridge is empty (about 40% empty now), I will use the Diamine Matador ink.
 
I've used many different ink brands in the 40+ years I've used fountain pens.

My all time favourite brand is Diamine. However, Robert Oster, which is a newer brand from Australia, is another option that is a close second.

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nemo

Lunatic Fringe
Staff member
Old Montblanc blue-black, an iron gall ink. So well behaved, nice dark color.

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Diamond Registrars Ink. It runs dry but I’ve had it in my Pilot Custom 823 for about eight months and had no issues at all. The pen runs well with it but on the dry side. My second is Noodler’s Bad Belted Kingfisher. I keep that running in a PeliKan M800.
 
Diamine Writer's Blood followed by Noodlers "Five O'clock Shadow" … yes I still have my bottle purchased when this site and Noodlers collaborated on an ink
 
It's funny and I have read this happening to many aficionados...I started out buying exclusively black pens and using blue or blue-black ink as I was a serious business man (cough). It seems the older I get the more exotic my taste in pen and ink colors gets. What's up with that?
Noodlers Baystate Blue
Diamine Blue Velvet
Diamine Razzmatazz
Lamy Mango
Cross Violet
Schaeffer Red
PW Akkerman China Town Red
Iroshizuku Fuyu-Gaki
Graf von Faber Castell Electric Pink
Private Reserve Buttercup
Herbin Vert Olive
 
Old Montblanc blue-black, an iron gall ink. So well behaved, nice dark color.

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I have gone through several of those bottles. My only MB left is blue, but those are very reusable bottles. If you looked in my ink drawer, you would find several with other inks in them. It’s a good utilitarian bottle. The ink was great too, but the bottle is ultra useful.
 
It's funny and I have read this happening to many aficionados...I started out buying exclusively black pens and using blue or blue-black ink as I was a serious business man (cough). It seems the older I get the more exotic my taste in pen and ink colors gets. What's up with that?
Noodlers Baystate Blue
Diamine Blue Velvet
Diamine Razzmatazz
Lamy Mango
Cross Violet
Schaeffer Red
PW Akkerman China Town Red
Iroshizuku Fuyu-Gaki
Graf von Faber Castell Electric Pink
Private Reserve Buttercup
Herbin Vert Olive

You have those inks, but do you use them? I never had an issue with colored pens, but, while I have the rainbow of inks, I almost always use blue black. As a self-employed CPA/consultant, blue black ink seems safe, but it was my favorite when I was a kid too, always has been.
Many of my colored inks are generic colors, but I also have the Diamond Ancient Copper and Dragon Red which have character. I used The Dragon Red once and the Ancient Copper sparingly - both in my private journaling. I just ordered a bottle of Diamine Denim and am really looking forward to getting that ink - it will get everyday use.

I am nearing retirement, so maybe once I have cast off the chains of the work world, I will branch out into my colored inks. My wife is also into fountain pens, but more as a collector than a user, although she does occasionally use one. Most of the colored ink stash was her indicating a preference for a particular ink. Most of the stash in the blue to black range was my buys or came with a pen purchase. I’m not sure why we have so many black inks, but I almost never use them. If I ran out of blue black and could not get more, I would use the blue inks before the blacks.

What was the cause of your migration to the colored inks?
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I am nearing retirement, so maybe once I have cast off the chains of the work world, I will branch out into my colored inks.

For me, fountain pens were never viable as a work pen anyway. Too many duplicate/triplicate pads, oils and greases, and light fingered people around. Therefore my inks only really get seen by me, except for greetings cards.

All the same, I've still steered towards the darker inks, blue, green, brown, and purple. I've never bought any black fountain pen ink, and my lightest is Diamine's Burnt Sienna. Bright inks, shimmering inks, and heavy sheening inks, aren't for me. I prefer what I consider all-purpose inks, with the exception of black. Red doesn't interest me much either.
 
You have those inks, but do you use them? I never had an issue with colored pens, but, while I have the rainbow of inks, I almost always use blue black. As a self-employed CPA/consultant, blue black ink seems safe, but it was my favorite when I was a kid too, always has been.
Many of my colored inks are generic colors, but I also have the Diamond Ancient Copper and Dragon Red which have character. I used The Dragon Red once and the Ancient Copper sparingly - both in my private journaling. I just ordered a bottle of Diamine Denim and am really looking forward to getting that ink - it will get everyday use.

I am nearing retirement, so maybe once I have cast off the chains of the work world, I will branch out into my colored inks. My wife is also into fountain pens, but more as a collector than a user, although she does occasionally use one. Most of the colored ink stash was her indicating a preference for a particular ink. Most of the stash in the blue to black range was my buys or came with a pen purchase. I’m not sure why we have so many black inks, but I almost never use them. If I ran out of blue black and could not get more, I would use the blue inks before the blacks.

What was the cause of your migration to the colored inks?
At first, besides writing checks for bills at home, I almost exclusively used my fountain pens at work -- which meant black (which I never liked and did not use in my pens) blue or blue-black. About 15-16 years ago I bought a "lot" of approx 25 different ink bottles (colors & manufacturers) on eBay after the manager at the local Colorado Pen store showed me a couple of private reserve inks that they started carrying that were "different" -- blues, greens, purples, browns, reds, etc. I liked the different colors but except for the darker "blues," the other colors might be dipped for fun or loaded as a "highlighting" pen but there wasn't much use for them and so they mostly stayed in a box in my closet.
Then, about 12 years ago, I started transitioning to telecommuting, when much of my work-writing became personal meeting notes and journal entries. This got me thinking about the different colors in the closet, which I retrieved, and once I started using them, I never looked back. I even made an inventory (see photo attached) of the inks to help me decide which color matched my "mood."
About 6 years ago I became a permanent home-based worker and have not been in the office -- even for a visit -- since 2017.
As I have mentioned in other posts, I usually have 6 to 10 pens loaded with a variety of colors at any one time and use all of them consistently. I love the rainbow of colors I have at my beck and call. I still am always on the search for "just the right blue" as it is still my favorite color. Diamine Blue Velvet and Noodlers Baystate Blue (as mentioned above) are my current favorites but the search is probably eternal.
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I find it difficult to compare; different inks have different qualities, but I really love the way J Herbin Cornaline d’Egypte looks.
 
For me, fountain pens were never viable as a work pen anyway. Too many duplicate/triplicate pads, oils and greases, and light fingered people around. Therefore my inks only really get seen by me, except for greetings cards.

All the same, I've still steered towards the darker inks, blue, green, brown, and purple. I've never bought any black fountain pen ink, and my lightest is Diamine's Burnt Sienna. Bright inks, shimmering inks, and heavy sheening inks, aren't for me. I prefer what I consider all-purpose inks, with the exception of black. Red doesn't interest me much either.
While I love my "bright" inks, they are obvioulsy not appropriate for some uses and although I have bought a few (and like) some shimmer/glitter/sheen inks, I must admit that because I mostly write (not paint or "fill in") with them, their additional properties do not really make that big of a difference to me and are not usually worth the extra $ -- there are exceptions (like Diamine Razzmatazz) but it is usually the actual color that I tend to like.
 
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