Inks

Fountain Pen Inks

Below are the Inks I use most often in my Fountain Pens. Before I list my favorite inks I would like to note a few things of importance:

Glenn Marcus has superb reviews of many of the inks I use, so rather than "re-invent the wheel", I am going to refer you to his webpage HERE. Be sure to check out his "Inks of Choice" HERE.

There are many great inks and colors available from the Goulet Pen Company. Goulet has worked very hard to offer you swabs of all the colors available and even has sample vials available so you can try out a color before buying a whole bottle. If you want more info on ink you should definitely check out their website HERE.

Pendemonium is a great source of information on inks - check out their ink facts HERE. They also sell a complete selection of inks as all kinds of other pen supplies too!

Also, before I begin I would like you to note that Waterman Inks are generally considered to be the "safest" ink for all fountain pens. They also have the best bottles. The bottle is truly innovative in its shape which allows one to lean it on a faceted side to accommodate filling a pen when the bottle is less than half full. I know of no other ink bottle that allows this and other bottles are impossible to work with when they get too low. Therefore, I save all my empty Waterman bottles so I can fill them with other inks. I also routinely use a syringe (syringes are available from Goulet Pens or Pendemonium above) to get the last drops out of any ink bottle.

So here we go with my favorite inks!

Blue Inks:

Waterman Florida Blue

Waterman South Seas Blue

Diamine Sapphire Blue

J Herbin Eclat de Saphir

Private Reserve American Blue

Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue

Private Reserve Blue Suede

Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-jaku (this ink is a deep turquoise blue)

Blue-Black Inks:

Waterman Blue-Black

Diamine Majestic Blue

Private Reserve Midnight Blues

Red Inks:

Private Reserve Burgundy Mist

Private Reserve Black Cherry

Brown Inks:

Waterman Havana Brown

Private Reserve Chocolate

Green Inks:

Note: Even though the Ebony Blue below has the word "blue" in it's name. To my eye it is definitely more dark green than blue. Hence, I have listed it as a green ink.

Private Reserve Sherwood Green

Private Reserve Ebony Blue

Black Inks:

OK - I'm not going to show color swabs of these inks because - let's face it - black is black! No way you will tell the difference by looking art black samples on a computer. That being said, in real life on paper there is indeed a difference. My favorite black inks are as follows:

Mont Blanc Black, Diamine Jet Black, Waterman Black, Sheaffer Quink Black, and Parker Skrip Black.