I figure we need something to get the conversation going.
We hear a lot about popular inks like Iroshizuku Kon-Peki, Noodler’s Black, and Waterman Serenity Blue all the time. Let’s start talking some inks that sadly don’t get as much attention as they actually deserve.
What’s your favourite underrated ink?
I think workhorse type inks are some of my favourite underrated inks. Aurora Black doesn’t get as much love as it actually deserves. It’s a great workhorse ink. Nothing really fancy, but it just works. I like Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue way more than I thought I would. It’s very dry and does a great job of controlling some of the firehose pens in my collection.
I need to start experimenting with inks. Currently Montblanc Permanent Black goes into all of my pens, although I’m waiting on a Pelikan M800 which will come with a bottle of Pelikan 4001 Black, which I’m very much looking forward to writing with.
I started with Preppies, Safaris, and Sport/Perkeos which led to being able to expand the pen (and ink) collection pretty quickly. By this point, most of them have a default or a few defaults that I know they work well with and just get refilled regularly. Where I can, I try to match pen and ink, but that’s secondary to what works well.
I own zero entirely unused inks, which means (to me) that I have just about the right number of options.
Not averse to swapping some samples, not sure if this community has the traction or how we’d set it up since DMs aren’t private. Not that they were on reddit either, but more servers / admins involved in the process turns it into a different question I suppose.
Parker Quink. It dries quickly, flows well and generally behaves well in most pens, even those otherwise prone to clogging. It’s inexpensive, decent looking ink. Nothing special or fancy, just good ink.
I think it depends on surfaces as well. Noodler’s Xfeather dries up pretty quick but not on stuff like hard plastic.
Sitting on two bottles of their stuff that I’ve used once each - and then I was made aware of some relevant things I found personally unsettling. If you’re not already aware, I’m sure you can search it in r / fountainpens
He already has my money, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t like using it because I come back to that same personal struggle every time, instead of focusing on the pen, ink, and paper in front of me.
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it, I find there are plenty of other options out there that meet my needs/wants better anyway but that’s intensely personal.
Rohrer and Klingner Salix is my workhorse, it never damages pens even with severe use (never washing out the pen properly, just refilling forever after a quick wipe to get rid of residue that would stain my fingers), it is reasonably good for documents and resisting water damage, but also won’t make everything blue forever like proper document inks (I wouldn’t use document ink in a vintage pen I liked).
After emptying my Serenity Blue bottle I tried a sample of Diamine Sargasso Sea which is praised as a good ink for Flex. It wasn’t that much different from Serenity Blue but bleeds through all my paper, even a tiny bit through the expensive one (Clair Fontaine). Now I went for a Pelikan 4001 Blau Schwarz bottle and it is very well behaved like Waterman. I really like the rich near black colour with a flex nib. It is pretty water resistant too. Looking at my own experience and the comments here, good workhorse inks are usually Waterman, Pelikan, Parker, etc. All of these are old pen brands. For me price is important too. As you say people praise Iroshizuku but where I live it’s like 30 eur per 50ml. Waterman is 11 eur per 50ml, Parker is 9 eur per 57ml and Pelikan 4001 is 6 eur per 30 ml. I feel that good inks that are cheap are kinda underrated. Sometimes while watching pen videos I feel that everyone is all over expensive inks with wild shimmer and sheen.
