Do you have an ink dependence? I can help...

Noodler's Summer Tanager and Private Reserve's Chocolat

3/6/12
I've been toying with the idea of writing some reviews of fountain pen ink. I've never really done it before, but I'm accumulating a fairly good collection of inks, and it might be fun to try out for a while.

I've been interested in fountain pens for a long while (ever since my mother showed me one of her snorkel-type pens when I was a kid) and I've been using them for several years now. I started off with a fairly modest collection of Private Reserve inks, but that collection has expanded exponentially over the last few months. I discovered that one could get samples of inks through the mail. FANTASTIC!

Anyway, here are two inks that I have as samples. The first is one that I'm actually pretty fond of, and the second is a total dog.

Private Reserve's Chocolat is a deep brown. In fact, it could probably pass a black unless you look closely. It's smooth and thick, so it lays down really nicely on the page. If you like the idea of writing in actual chocolate, this one might be for you. It's also just different enough from black that that you would be able to tell the difference if you look closely. That might be useful for people who sign things and want to know whether it's actually their signature or not.

On the other hand, the ink might stain your converter, so I don't think I'd try it in a demonstrator or other clear-ish pen.

Noodler's inks are generally very nice. They've got interesting colors and the inks that I've tried from them are generally well behaved. This one, though, sucks. It's just no fun to use at all.

Summer Tanager is a pretty bright orange, and I really wanted to like it. I can't. I just can't. It feathers, it bleeds, and if there were other ways in which it could misbehave I'm sure it would.  The one thing that it did really well is wash out of my Ahab when I was finished writing this page. You'll notice that there's a mistake or two and some awkward phrasing in the written sample. I just left it that way because I didn't want to waste more paper on it. The sheet under that one is already covered in orange dots and lines. Avoid it unless you...well, just avoid it.

Word.
Mike
Post Comment