19 Jan 2016

in search of the perfect blue-black ink #1: platinum blue-black cartridges

Early last year, my fountain pen obsession really kicked off and by August, I was trying to find the perfect blue-black ink. Cue a mad amount of research about the current options out there! I originally decided to try out cartridges and one of the first ones I decided to give a go were the Platinum ones.


And this is how they look in my notes:


Overall, I do like this shade but the price is a bit off putting. Bizarrely, it also looks completely different depending on what paper I use. As mentioned in the scanned image above, I do like the convenience of cartridges and this is a pretty decent shade of blue-black so I think there will be a repurchase of these when my current stock is depleted. 

9 comments

  1. Hello! I bought a TWSBI Diamond 580AL and ink it up with Pilot blue ink. Blue-black it ain't, but it is a well-behaved, reasonably water-resistant, and attractive blue ink. The TWSBI has a very large piston fill so can easily get through several days of heavy use before needing to refill. It is also to keep track of how much ink it has. When it gets down to about half filled, I make a note in my planner to refill and take care of that when at home. In my old Lamy pen, the ink could run out mid-day. I had some platinum blue-black cartridges around and like the ink. I agree, interesting how it looks so different depending on the paper!

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    1. Hi Josh! Nice to hear from you :) Spoiler alert: I acquired a TWSBI Diamond 580AL late last year and its ink capacity is unreal! I've tried out a few more blue-black inks since and will talk about them in due course. There are a few which I absolutely love :)

      Hope things are well with you and that it isn't too cold where you are! We've hit a cold patch now and it's freezing here x

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    2. It's been cold here too, which I don't generally mind, but yesterday I had an evening meeting in a neighboring town and took a train, and lazily took a bus from there rather than walking because the cold was getting to me! Hope all is well. The TWSBI is my favorite pen, hands down. I have an EF and it is so wonderfully reliable and smooth. I have a Kaweco sport in aluminum I use as a pocket pen but it is not as reliable.

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    3. Sounds like a lot of the northern hemisphere are currently going through a cold snap! Hope it's warmed up a bit for you. The TWSBI is a lovely pen - aside from the garish pinks that I favour, we appear to have almost the same taste in pens! Great minds and all that :)

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  2. It's normal for inks to look like a different colour on different paper, but it makes things a lot more interesting. TWSBI is a really good option to add to your collection like Josh pointed out. It has a filling mechanism that you don't have yet (judging from a post of your fountain pens I saw a while back). I love my TWSBI and it's my default for taking to university.
    If you move away from cartridges you can try Rohrer & Klinger Salix. I like it because it's well-behaved and waterproof but is darker than the Platinum blue-black.

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    1. This Platinum ink that I've tried seems to look really different on different paper though - whereas others I've tried have much less variation :) Spoiler alert: a TWSBI 580AL landed in my collection at the end of 2015 and I do love how much ink it can hold x

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  3. Have you tried Lamy Blue-Black? They come in both bottles and cartridges and it's one of my favourite blue-black inks. It has more grey undertones and is less saturated with blue so if that's not your thing then I don't recommend it. xP

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    1. I have indeed and that'll be one of the inks talked about in this mini-series :) x

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    2. Looking forward to it! Love this series idea.

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