Montblanc Albert Einstein

[Sandy1]

Instead of Lamy, you may want to have a look at the very inexpensive Online fountain pens (Campus and College series) with italic nibs. They are half the price of Lamy, and while the pens themselves are nothing to write home about, I find their italic nibs much easier to write with than Lamy's, with better line variation. See http://www.theonline...pany/Online.php (no affiliation).

Hi,

 

Many thanks for your suggestions!

 

I already have the Lamy 1.5, and some 'calligraphy' nibs. I've also been experimenting toying with wide dip pen nibs as an inexpensive way to try various shapes & widths.

 

A Parker England 51 recently arrived, which I thought would have a B nib, but in fact it has a 1.1 Stub! So I am motivated to up my game to get the best from that nib.

 

Bye,

S1

Edited March 19, 2013 by Sandy1

[Sandy1]

Can anyone say how it compares with (unlimited) Oyster Grey?

It is a bit darker than Oyster Grey. When wet, it also seems to have a purplish hue that mostly disappears upon drying. I find it more suitable than Oyster Grey for fine nibs.

 

You are right about the hue, it shows as a strong purple in the bottle, and even stronger in my M200 demonstrator. It's almost surprising to see no purple on the page.

 

Since no one else likes this ink, please send me your bottles for safe and hygienic disposal. I really, really, really like it. And what I like about it is how it changes in different lights. In bright sunlight it looks the palest sort of grey, just a wisp of thought seen from the edge of the eye on the page. So you would think that in low light it would vanish, but in lower light it increases in contrast so that it begins to appear as a much blacker ink, reaching a visual tone similar to that of Waterman black when one uses it in the dark back corner of the café.

 

But I guess I'm the only one, so as I said, send all the unwanted bottles to me ASAP.

Hi,

 

At last! We have the benefit of a Member who appreciates this ink, and eloquently describes the attractions of MBAE. . . . Yet wants us to abandon all hope of appreciating this ink by offering to adopt / rescue our bottles.

 

The reverse psychology is working: Now I must not send MBAE to the Mixing Corral, but persist in exploring this ink down to the last drop! Perhaps I'll wear a ring-top round my neck so that I can jot and doodle at will, though I fear that would become my very own albatross; if so, maybe I'll name it Albert.

 

Bye,

S1

 

EDIT - to add: It would be unlikely to find me "in the dark back corner of the café", let alone using Waterman Black. More likely I'd be on the terrace, in plein aire, scribbling a missive in Sheaffer Skrip Turquoise.

Edited March 20, 2013 by Sandy1

[Sandy1]

According to your review MBEG shades well. Much better than I expected.

 

I'm noobie with gray.

DA Sahara gray, is a grayed green. DA Cement Gray, looks like the flight line cement just before dawn lightens the horizon after a rain. (In case you want to add that to your gray survey.)

The two grays I like, are discontinued Pelikan Gray and Silver Gray in old @ 1990 cartridges (4 of each cartridges left) . That's all I have in gray.

None shade as well as Einstein.

 

Don't mix it until you've done your gray survey, you might change your mind. It took me quite a while to develop a liking for black-blue.

 

It seems that the C 74 did the best job. It was also the one that had spots of show through.

 

You did give the ink all the chances in the world even bringing out the Clairefontaine Triomphe.

 

The problem with this ink is the need to pull the trigger quickly, due to it being limited.

 

A. Pelikan M200 + g-p steel EF nib. That you got any shading at all from an EF nib was to me sort of astounding.

B. Platinum President Purist + 22K B nib. This is the equivalent of a European M? It showed the least considering the what the EF nib showed.

 

C. Pilot Custom 74 + three-tine № 5 14K MS nib. This must be one of your wetter nibs. Is this a 'Euro' B width?

This one gave some life to this ink.

 

It could be this ink is a one width B only ink?

Perhaps something for a wetter nib, a semi-flex M or B.

 

The question remains is it worth getting a nib limited ink?

The worst is the spotty bleed through with a wetter nib on good paper.

Hi,

 

I agree that the shading is most welcome, and is perhaps the saving grace of this ink. As usual, I haven't cherry-picked the pens used for the samples with the intent of 'showcasing' this ink.

 

I thought that my previous experience with other Grey inks would've given me the ability to approach MBAE, but no.

 

Many thanks for your detailed response to the pens used.

• The M200+EF has proven to be capable of generating some shading rather unexpectedly with other inks. But it is a very plump EF, nearly the same width as the Sheaffer 330 and Estie M nibs seen in other Reviews.
• The PPP+B is just a bit wider than most Western M nibs. As it is of very soft material, I use an even lighter hand - whilst writing the tines are not spread to the same extent of the other nibs. (For a comparo, it appears alongside an M400+M in the ESSRI Review.)
• It does seem the C74+MS gives a more attractive result - at least from my hand. It generates a line of about 1.0 on the HPJ1124, which is 0.2-ish wider than a Safari B.

I think my personal challenge is to find a [narrower] nib that I can manage, with properties similar to the C74+MS. I think a Duofold with a 0.7 Stub beckons, or that Taperite with a flexi-soft Stub. Hmm. (Seems a lot of fussing about - more than yu-yake - but I'm on a learning curve.)

 

I don't care for bleed-through, but don't use both sides of the sheet for personal correspondence, so I reckon its just one of those scars of authenticity.

 

Bye,

S1

 

___ ___

ESSRI - My Review

Edited March 20, 2013 by Sandy1

[seffrican]

Can anyone say how it compares with (unlimited) Oyster Grey?

It is a bit darker than Oyster Grey. When wet, it also seems to have a purplish hue that mostly disappears upon drying. I find it more suitable than Oyster Grey for fine nibs.

 

You are right about the hue, it shows as a strong purple in the bottle, and even stronger in my M200 demonstrator. It's almost surprising to see no purple on the page.

 

Since no one else likes this ink, please send me your bottles for safe and hygienic disposal. I really, really, really like it. And what I like about it is how it changes in different lights. In bright sunlight it looks the palest sort of grey, just a wisp of thought seen from the edge of the eye on the page. So you would think that in low light it would vanish, but in lower light it increases in contrast so that it begins to appear as a much blacker ink, reaching a visual tone similar to that of Waterman black when one uses it in the dark back corner of the café.

 

But I guess I'm the only one, so as I said, send all the unwanted bottles to me ASAP.

Hi,

 

At last! We have the benefit of a Member who appreciates this ink, and eloquently describes the attractions of MBAE. . . . Yet wants us to abandon all hope of appreciating this ink by offering to adopt / rescue our bottles.

 

Well, thank you, I don't believe I have been described as eloquent for a long time.

 

And my - rather generous, I think - offer was made so that the poor ink would not sit wasting away unloved and unappreciated. Any one who doesn't want to do that can PM me for details about where to send their supplies.

 

But if you want to take the time to know and appreciate MBE, I heartily approve.

 

The reverse psychology is working: Now I must not send MBAE to the Mixing Corral, but persist in exploring this ink down to the last drop! Perhaps I'll wear a ring-top round my neck so that I can jot and doodle at will; though I fear that would become my very own albatross; if so, maybe I'll name it Albert.

 

I look forward to seeing the map of your explorations. And give my regards to Albert.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have mostly vintage, and my 4 EF nail, regular flex, semi & 'flexi' are that, so I think 'smaller'.

 

I've found many inks shade well with regular flex F & M, better perhaps with what ever paper I was using than with wider or more flexible nibs.

Edited March 20, 2013 by Bo Bo Olson

[TomJKT]

Wow, I'm really impressed by your well done review! Thank you! I pre-ordered 2 bottles of this at my local MB boutique, since these are the only 'color' inks which are available here. Though now, I'm not sure, if I really want them anymore. It looks boring...

Best,

Thomas

[Sandy1]

Wow, I'm really impressed by your well done review! Thank you! I pre-ordered 2 bottles of this at my local MB boutique, since these are the only 'color' inks which are available here. Though now, I'm not sure, if I really want them anymore. It looks boring...

Best,

Thomas

 

Hi Thomas,

 

You're welcome!

 

I'm glad you like the Review.

 

Clearly I have a problem with MBAE, which I've decided to turn into a learning opportunity, and to see what can be done with a wow-less ink.

 

At least we have the generous offer of Member seffrican to rescue any unloved MBAE . . .

 

Bye,

S1

Edited March 21, 2013 by Sandy1

[notVirtuThe3rd]

Great!!

 

Thanks for the awesome informative review.

[Sandy1]

Great!!

 

Thanks for the awesome informative review.

Hi,

 

You're welcome!

 

I am flattered by your kind words.

 

Bye,

S1

[LagNut]

Another fantastic review, but the first where I saw you abandon a pen/ink combo in mid page.

 

Granted, I know I haven't dug through a lot(percentage wise) of your earlier reviews, so maybe this has happened before. I'm assuming the skipping was so bad it made continuing pointless?

 

Also, I'm really glad you're going into the gray realm, I do like this (and love my Fuyu-Syogun). Having spent a large part of my life in a field where pencil made the most sense, given my propensity to goof, and not being able to just strikeout and continue, it somehow calms me to have this hue.

 

Thanks much for this and your massive catalog of earlier hits. Along with the information, humor scattered like little gems amongst your pages.

 

Cheers,

Mike

Edited March 22, 2013 by LagNut

[Sandy1]

Another fantastic review, but the first where I saw you abandon a pen/ink combo in mid page.

 

Granted, I know I haven't dug through a lot(percentage wise) of your earlier reviews, so maybe this has happened before. I'm assuming the skipping was so bad it made continuing pointless?

 

Also, I'm really glad you're going into the gray realm, I do like this (and love my Fuyu-Syogun). Having spent a large part of my life in a field where pencil made the most sense, given my propensity to goof, and not being able to just strikeout and continue, it somehow calms me to have this hue.

 

Thanks much for this and your massive catalog of earlier hits. Along with the information, humor scattered like little gems amongst your pages.

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

Hi Mike,

 

You're welcome!

 

I'm glad you like this ink!

 

Yes, the C74+MS was persistently skipping on G Lalo: not just a blip attributable to hand oil or a patch of bad paper or flickering flow. It is very uncommon to abandon a sample part way through, and quite frankly I'm surprised that the incidence of failure to perform is so rare. (Failure on the basis of appearance is left to each of my dear readers.)

 

I agree that the neutrality of Grey can be 'calming', but MBAE strikes me as a blank - I'm hard pressed to engage with it, which leaves me perplexed, and somehow unsatisfied. Like a drink of ambient temp tinned water.

 

Bye,

S1

[Pterodactylus]

http://imageshack.us/a/img850/6813/5qq6.jpg

 

(Pelikan 140 - OF ..... Mont Blanc Oyster Grey)

Edited July 18, 2013 by Pterodactylus

[chiaroscuro]

Can anyone say how it compares with (unlimited) Oyster Grey?

It is a bit darker than Oyster Grey. When wet, it also seems to have a purplish hue that mostly disappears upon drying. I find it more suitable than Oyster Grey for fine nibs.

 

You are right about the hue, it shows as a strong purple in the bottle, and even stronger in my M200 demonstrator. It's almost surprising to see no purple on the page.

 

Since no one else likes this ink, please send me your bottles for safe and hygienic disposal. I really, really, really like it. And what I like about it is how it changes in different lights. In bright sunlight it looks the palest sort of grey, just a wisp of thought seen from the edge of the eye on the page. So you would think that in low light it would vanish, but in lower light it increases in contrast so that it begins to appear as a much blacker ink, reaching a visual tone similar to that of Waterman black when one uses it in the dark back corner of the café.

 

But I guess I'm the only one, so as I said, send all the unwanted bottles to me ASAP.

 

Not the only one [send half a bottle to seffrican, the other half to me].

 

I've only dip tested it and I like it a lot so far. Neutral grey inks that don't have some "dealbreaker" problem (no shading, for example, too light, too dark, too cool, too warm, strong smell, stainibg, etc.) are in themselves not that common. I don't need for it to also have a fancy sheen or to sparkle in the moonlight or have curative properties. I think the way it quickly turns from purple to grey is cool; icing on the cake. That said, it is a little pricey for 30ml. I was expecting the standard 60ml bottle.

[Pterodactylus]

http://imageshack.us/a/img822/3984/z5h4.jpg

 

(Pelikan M600 - M ..... De Atramentis Silbergrau)

(Pelikan 140 - OF ..... Mont Blanc Oyster Grey)

Edited July 18, 2013 by Pterodactylus

[seffrican]

Can anyone say how it compares with (unlimited) Oyster Grey?

It is a bit darker than Oyster Grey. When wet, it also seems to have a purplish hue that mostly disappears upon drying. I find it more suitable than Oyster Grey for fine nibs.

 

You are right about the hue, it shows as a strong purple in the bottle, and even stronger in my M200 demonstrator. It's almost surprising to see no purple on the page.

 

Since no one else likes this ink, please send me your bottles for safe and hygienic disposal. I really, really, really like it. And what I like about it is how it changes in different lights. In bright sunlight it looks the palest sort of grey, just a wisp of thought seen from the edge of the eye on the page. So you would think that in low light it would vanish, but in lower light it increases in contrast so that it begins to appear as a much blacker ink, reaching a visual tone similar to that of Waterman black when one uses it in the dark back corner of the café.

 

But I guess I'm the only one, so as I said, send all the unwanted bottles to me ASAP.

 

Not the only one [send half a bottle to seffrican, the other half to me].

 

I've only dip tested it and I like it a lot so far. Neutral grey inks that don't have some "dealbreaker" problem (no shading, for example, too light, too dark, too cool, too warm, strong smell, stainibg, etc.) are in themselves not that common. I don't need for it to also have a fancy sheen or to sparkle in the moonlight or have curative properties. I think the way it quickly turns from purple to grey is cool; icing on the cake. That said, it is a little pricey for 30ml. I was expecting the standard 60ml bottle.

 

I have no idea what other people are paying for this ink. When I saw the price tag at my local papeterie, I thought they had accidentally misplaced the decimal point in the price.

 

I'm happy to share everyone else's MB Einstein with you, shall we set up a drop address for them to send it to? :ltcapd:

 

Incidentally, can anyone decipher the handwriting on the box for me? I recognise a Fitgerald-Poincaré-Lorenz transformation, but I can't make out the crossed through symbol or combination of symbols on the left, and is that an a, q, or d under the square root symbol?

[chiaroscuro]

Incidentally, can anyone decipher the handwriting on the box for me? I recognise a Fitgerald-Poincaré-Lorenz transformation, but I can't make out the crossed through symbol or combination of symbols on the left, and is that an a, q, or d under the square root symbol?

 

It was taken directly from his papers, apparently:

http://i47.tinypic.com/5v3iom.jpg

(pic from this site)

It looks like a crossed out cursive capital (majuscule) "L" -- a poorly written pound sterling symbol? lol. No idea what it means. Maybe a "typo"? lol

[Penne Stilografiche]

I defiantly would not have the patience to be as thorough as you were while making this review. Great Job! :clap1:

[Bo Bo Olson]

His first wife, being more intelligent than him did or checked all his math for him.

The Stroke of Genius was his...dotting i's and crossing t's and making sure the sums were right was her part time job...between keeping house and raising children.

 

Any man could get into a University back then, it took an extraordinary woman to get into the men's club.

 

Child support and alimony were 'relative' to the distance from the gravitational disturbance of lamplight not shared....

 

After I found that out on a German TV show, I realized....he was sticking his tongue out at his wife, children and unpaid or underpaid responsibilities.

He'd be wanted by the FBI today.

[seffrican]

His first wife, being more intelligent than him did or checked all his math for him.

 

He'd be wanted by the FBI today.

 

Justice on the internet can be pretty arbitrary, n'est pas?

 

The math of special relativity is pretty trivial, a middle high school student can handle it. No super intelligence needed. The physical insight was that using the Fitzgerald-Poincaré-Lorentz transformations on the Maxwell equations would unify them into a single theory of electromagnetism.

 

The strange thing, given your theory, is that he carried on doing pretty intensive science long after parting from his first wife. General relativity, tensor formulation of gravity, unified field theory, and of course the entire dialogue on quantum theory with Born, Bohr, and Pauli, which went on into the 1950s.

 

Having stared at the picture posted by chiaroscuro (thanks, BTW) I have decided that the leftmost symbol is a capital cursive E, and that it's a q squared over the c squared. The E usage would be conventional, the q I have never seen used before, but it's a matter of taste what one denotes velocity by.

 

And I still want all your unwanted MB Einstein ink, please keep sending those bottles

[CS388]

Thanks. Great review, very comprehensive.

 

I have to agree with you. I thought the MBAE looked interesting in the bottle, but disappointing on the page.

I've currently got a 149 full of it - and it's getting less use than it normally does. I'd class it as a very ordinary ink.

 

The packaging (box and bottle) are also pretty handsome - but, to me, that just adds to the disappointment of the contents.

 

AFAIK it's still available in UK boutiques at around £11 for a 30ml bottle.

 

Thanks.