Franklin-Christoph Spanish Blue

[white_lotus]

Franklin-Christoph is a pen maker in North Carolina, USA and they also have a line of inks. It's not a big line, but every now and then they add a color or two in their "special colors". One of these is called Spanish Blue. It's a light blue that's not quite green enough to be turquoise, but some may call it that anyway, and they may well be correct in their judgement. It's very similar in hue to a number of other inks including MB Honoré de Balzac LE, though with not as much green and not as saturated; KWZI Turquoise, but not as saturated; Sailor KN Porpita porpita, but not as straight blue as that. It's a single dye ink, and fairly bright. I'm not sure where I stand with this ink. It's a very smooth flowing, well lubricated ink, but the line I got from this ink was more narrow than other inks such as KWZI Azures #4 and #5, so I probably should have used a wider nib to test this ink as that may have shown its character more.

 

Anyway the inks are reasonably priced ($12.50 for a 2 oz bottle), but seem only available from F-C itself. They also offer a unique squeeze-bottle for filling eyedropper pens directly from the bottle. I haven't tried that, but fans of eyedropper pens may find something useful in this brand because of that.

 

 

So it's worth your consideration if you fancy this kind of color. I didn't find any sheen and minimal shading, but again, I probably needed a wider nib.

 

The usual papers: Mohawk via Linen=MvL, Tomoe River=TR, Hammermill 28 lb inkjet=Hij.

 

Special Note: I had a small issue writing on the next day. The color changed! What actually happened I think was the ink picked up leftover ink in the feed from the prior KWZI fills. After emptying the pen and cleaning, I then used a pen flush product and got a pick more blue out. Since the converter was clean, it much have been the feed, right?

 

 

I think the camera/software is exaggerating the brightness here.

 

 

Not waterfast, but there seems to be some water resistance.

 

The ink droplet shows a single dye.

[cjr]

I got a sample of this ink with my new F-C Model 20 at the DC Pen Show. I really liked the color and performance of the ink. However, it had no water resistance at all and wouldn't work in my office environment. Compare it to Edelstein Topaz.

[Barkingpig]

Papier Plume also sells Franklin Christoph inks.

 

The last time I placed an order I added one of the 12 FC colors they had to "ride along" in my package from Papier Plume, since they offer a VERY friendly shipping selection of "first class" shipping @ $3.59 for shipping two bottles of ink. I was ordering a bottle of Papier Plume ink & saw no reason to pay shipping from two companies when Papier Plume had the Franklin Christoph ink.

[visvamitra]

Thank you for informative review. Not my color, but I believe it may be interesting to many ink users.