Can you list ten of your top inks?

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Blackhorse

Blackhorse

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No special order.
No lengthy descriptions or explanations.

Mine:

Ten of my Favorite Fountain Pen Inks - in no particular order...

1. Noodler’s Kung Te-Cheng - a quick dry for left handed writers
2. Noodler's Manjiro Nakahama Whaleman's Sepia - beautiful, well mannered, historically important
3. Diamine Imperial Purple - a perfect Purple
4. Noodler's Walnut - currently my favorite ink...perfect in every way
5. Monteverde California Teal - wet, well behaved & just THE most beautiful Forest Green
6. Diamine Red Dragon - intense dark red ink everyone MUST have
7. Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses - simply delightful color & shading
8. Noodler's Heart of Darkness - the black hole of fountain pen inks
9. Organics Studio Henry David Thoreau Walden Pond - gorgeous to behold
10. Organics Studio Nitrogen - gorgeous to behold redux

And I could easily have listed ten other favorite inks. These just came to mind.

So THERE!
 
Clue: the best ink Review site I know of is “mountainofink.com”. Well organized and broad coverage. Highly recommended.

Clue#2: all the big ink sellers offer sample vials of all inks they sell for $1 - $2 ea. Do these as add-ones to other orders or do a bunch at a time or shipping hurts.


Notes: The Kung Te-Chang is glitchy and only upon need of a really fast drying ink. The others are all well mannered.

You can only get the Whaleman’s Sepia at Goulet in a large bottle. It’s expensive. Like $30 for 4.5 fl Oz and comes with a free Charlie eyedropper pen.  

 
Blackhorse":e6u9rsu3 said:
If anyone wants a great deal on a great pen...

https://www.jetpens.com/LAMY-Safari-Fountain-Pen-All-Black-Medium-Nib/pd/23611?&utm_source=restock&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=restock

If this “stealth” version (all black incl. hardware & nib) is still in, for $20 instead of the usual $30 it rocks.  Then get something like the Z28 converter so you can use bottled ink or a bunch of cartridges...but when your purchase goes ton$25 or above, everything ships free.

Click to expand...
Just bought a couple of these for Christmas in red and green, 1 each for both of my children (9 and 11), and a journal too.  They love them. Now they have a 'posh pen' they're taking a lot care over their writing.  Hopefully the start of a lifetime of writing pleasure.
 
Favorite inks? OH God. I don't keep records. So I may have an impression of what I vaguely remember about an ink.

Noodler's - The Violet Vote Formerly Iraqi Indigo. A purple lovers purple. Creepy in most of my pens.
Noodler's - Nikita A red for marking papers or ledger work.
Noodler's - FPN Van Gogh Starry Night Blue A nice blue-black. Maybe not the fastest drying ink. But I really like it.
Noodler's - Legal Lapis I do so like blue-blacks, and this one is a bit different. Permanent. Also a bit creepy.
Noodler's - Sequoia A very well behaved green ink. As you may imagine, this is on the darker side and not a brilliant green. Shades well.
Noodler's - Manhattan Blue A nice darkish sort of blue. Shades real nice. I sometimes switch back and forth with this and VG Starry Night.
Private Reserve - DC Supershow Blue Another nice blue-black. Not the fastest drying ink.
Private Reserve - Ebony Blue Sometimes I just want a teal sorta colored blue-black ink.
Graf von Faber-Castell - Hazelnut Brown Received this as a sample. The nicest brown ink I have ever used. A bit of shading. Enough to keep the interest up. Well behaved.
Pilot Iroshizuku - Shin-Kai A grey shaded blue-black. Smooth as all the Pilot inks seem to be. Very well behaved. Nice bottle.

This list can vary at any moment. Sometimes I like it when my eyes bleed, so I load up some Noodler's Baystate Blue. But it can be very dry in some pens. Never use it in any Lamy. Cannot trust Lamy to use a plastic that won't melt.
 
Reading this I'm thinking I need to get a converter for my Parker. I'm really liking the Noodler's Whaleman's Sepia. Available on Amazon UK too.
 
I guess I am mundane. Parker, Waterman and Sheaffer mostly. Private Reserve Tanzanite is nice, too. Anything but black ink which looks like a photocopy.

Legal Lapis and the other permanent ones put clothing at extreme risk. My recollection is that the ink binds with cellulose (cotton...).
 
It is also my understanding that most, if not all, “permanent” inks bind to cellulose...thus becoming permanent. There are also inks that are a dye in nature & I don’t know if that’s the same thing going on.

Having SO MANY INKS with varying properties is to me one of the most fun and important aspects of fountain pens.  Permanent inks are very important in terms of legal signatures being accident and forgery proof...and as a media for artistic applications.  For legal purposes inks also should be “bullet proof”. This adds the ability to be proof against both alcohol and bleaching.

Of course, inks being either permanent or not is a sliding scale. Some inks totally disappear with the least hint of a splash...all the way to not changing in the least even if submerged for days. So, say that that represents a scale of water proofness from 1 to 10. I don’t know how many inks fall where on a scale like that, but they’re all over the place.
 
I'm very close to pulling the trigger on a pot of Noodlers Walnut. I'm liking the tone; it's not black (austere) and it's not a shade of blue, both of which I believe to be the most common ink colours. I like the thought of being a bit more individualised. But before I do, a question for anyone who can shed some light...

Many of the Noodlers inks are, as Mr BH suggested above, 'bullet proof'. If they fall into this category, will the pen become easily gunked up? I have visions of the ink drying in the pen and becoming completely impervious to any cleaning thus rendering it useless. As with the inks I'm familiar with, I'm hoping that a soak in warm water would be all it needs for an occasional clean?
 
There is a Youtube video of George Bruno at a pen convention in Philly. Interesting topics and at the last 10 minutes of the video is an individual using an ink that gets darker with age and his skill at writing is very inspiring.

I did not have those types of ink pens but have a set for drafting of varying widths. Used them back in the old days quite a bit prior to the computer drafting.
 
peanubutter":bujci83w said:
There is a Youtube video of George Bruno at a pen convention in Philly. Interesting topics and at the last 10 minutes of the video is an individual using an ink that gets darker with age and his skill at writing is very inspiring.

I did not have those types of ink pens but have a set for drafting of varying widths. Used them back in the old days quite a bit prior to the computer drafting.
Click to expand...

WAY back in high school we had a Drafting class, started with mechanical diagrams and ended up with designing a house...with plans. Used all that old school stuff. It was a valuable experience. The teacher had a crew cut, a wooden leg & drove a Corvette. Very cool. When the student helper girls used to come into the classroom to deliver notes from the office he would flip a needle point divider into his wooden leg where it would stick with a satisfying “thunk”. The girls would nearly faint. Good times.
 
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