Private Reserve Electric Dc Blue

[visvamitra]

Private Reserve Ink was founded by Terry W. Johnson and Susan Schube in the workroom of Avalon Jewelers/Gallery in Zionsville, IN, as an addition to the fountain pen department. Terry's vision was simple... "Why not have fountain pen ink in a rainbow of colors to expand the bounds of writing beyond standard black, blue, red and green."

That's what's written on their internet site. My experience with their inks is ambigous: I like most colors, but the inks I've tried weren't best behaved (Orange Crush, Shoreline Gold caused nib crud; Hor Bubble Gum is PINK and it stains everything).

Bottle

Most of PR inks can be bought in cartridges and ugly 66ml bottles.

Blue inks are a bit hit and miss for me; I'm usually not keen on anything that reminds me of the blue ballpoint color that I used at school. Some blue inks, though, have an appeal that's hard to resist. Electric DC Blue has strong saturation and red sheen that make it loud but also quite interesting.

The colour is deep, highly saturated and quite dark. It is rather well behaved on paper with limited to no feathering (depending on the paper) and it dries in a reasonable length of time. Nice shading is available even with finer nibs. Flow is fine.

Ink Splash

Drops of ink on kitchen towel

Software ID

Color range

Tsubame, Diplomat Depeche, broad nib

Munken Pure Rough 100g, Diplomat Depeche, broad nib

Tomoe River, Diplomat Depeche, broad nib

Water resistance

Water resistance

[farazqamar]

nice review vis!

[namrehsnoom]

Great review, but for me this colour is a bit too much “in your face” - it jumped out of the screen and sucked out my eyes :-)

[Jamerelbe]

Great review, but for me this colour is a bit too much in your face - it jumped out of the screen and sucked out my eyes :-)

That's exactly what I like about it! Not sure it's much of an advance on Visconti Blue though - so I won't be rushing out to buy a bottle...

[TSherbs]

Nice review, thanks

[lapis]

Thanks for this review. I in fact like this ink (which has been out for the last 11 years) as re its actual color but the bottles are -- as you say -- ugly. Not only that, but what peeves me most is that PR has since shelled out their ink in at least five different sizes/shapes of bottles:

• 50 ml in 2 different bottle types
• 66 ml
• 75 ml
• 110 ml.

Man, I wish they would use only one single bottle size/shape (at most 2 different ones) which includes the boxes. After all, I have to store the remnants....

[EGdaTarHeel]

Excellent review! This used to be my go to inks. Its one of the first successful attempts to recreate our beloved Parker Penman Sapphirestrong saturation, the red sheen, great shading and nice blue. I backed off for 3 reasons

 

1. Very long dry time in my notebooks

2. The SITB issues of other PR inks that the owner has never really addressed

3. The appearance of Bungubox First Love which dried faster and didnt have the known SITB issues.

 

This is a great ink just came up a bit short for me. YMMV

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the review.

My experience is that on really good paper (Tomoe River) Electric Blue took a couple of MONTHS to fully dry, and not be smudgy. Mind you, this was a couple of years ago, and I don't know the current status of the PR inks (the guy who founded the company apparently died and took all the formulae with him....

Some of the PR inks I really like, others not so much (this was one of the "not so much" category inks).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ReadyFireAim]

Edison Beaumont / Ahab nib & FPR feed w/ PR Electric DC Blue.

Edited February 11, 2018 by Nail-Bender

[visvamitra]

Nice.

[swanjun]

This is one of my favorites.

[georges zaslavsky]

I had one bottle that I bought back in 2012 and it was my go to write with ink in many pens I used, troublefree and very reliable.Worked very well with my Sheaffer Balance Vac Fill Oversize.

[Bo Bo Olson]

It just goes to show you how long it took me to get some cartridge pens....or to think cartridge. Some nice poster gave me cartridges of Private Reserve's, DC Blue, Sherwood green, chocolate and velvet black, back before the last ice age or the last depression which ever came last.They got put away...and forgotten. Was not seen when I often looked in the blue box....in what ever I was looking for was not a cartridge.

I've read good reviews of Sharewood Green.....I got into green quite a while after I was given the few cartridges.

 

Could be the very long drying time was a delaying factor.......but what ever inks I've been using have been drying lots sooner than the Private Reserve blue ink. It was sort of , to actually have ink smear after 20 and more seconds.

I'm using '90-2000's Celebry with a semi-vintage width, regular flex gold nib...so the F is a good fine. Not the modern Pelikan fat and blobby.

The ink shades! On Rhodia 90g.

That is something it can and doesn't depending on the year I guess according to reviews. There is a slight bumpy line when I take a thick magnifying glass to it, but it is not major.

The blue does stand out.

 

 

As soon as this DC Blue is used, I'll use one of my couple Parker Pennmann Samphire, in these are supposed to be similar.

Ah, ha, my other Celebry with a steel F nib is empty. Didn't fit.

An English Parker Vector type pen, with a two stage/size barrel, invented in England was the only Parker pen I could find...nail M....or I could have pulled the squeeze unit on my P-75 but didn't think of it in time. The English sort of Vector...an M was way too light. So I moved the cartridge to my great balanced P-75. It was much darker. Semi-nail M.

 

From memory, PPS was not quite as dark and vivid as others said....perhaps the then paper wasn't good enough....though it was at least 90g and good enough to use a rare ink on

. Again perhaps blues have become better, PPS is bit lighter...duller...does shade a little.

PRDCB is darker, more vivid, shades better. I like it better.

 

Now I have to find a substitute for both of them.

Visconti blue folks said was very good but not quite as good as either.

 

Montiverdi seems suddenly to have a great deal of good inks...don't know about their blue, but in my fading memory...wans't thinking blues then, the Montiverdi blue was rated good I think.

Any other?

Edited May 15, 2019 by Bo Bo Olson

[amberleadavis]

So, I am sure it surprises no one here that this ink is one of my favorites. It is loud, obnoxious and retina searing. I own a few bottles and really love it.

[ErrantSmudge]

I think this could be a good alternative to Bay State Blue, the next time someone is looking for one.