Parker Quink Blue Black (New)

[timotheap]

I bought a bottle following your review. It's darker (to me) than the Waterman Blue Black and very nice indeed.

[Mercian]

How does one tell which is "New Formulation", is it thus labelled?

 

What Quink box colourway should I be looking out for... half gilt half colour with vertical separation? Or grey top 2/3rds and white bottom 1/3rd. Or that predominantly black box.

 

I think that the only way to tell which version of the ink that you have, or are buying, would be to check the product number in the bar code on the box, or on a vendors website.

For example, one can check this on Amazons UK website by clicking on the See more product details link, and then the relevant number is listed as Manufacturer Part Number.

 

According to the section of the Parkerpen.com website for GB, the bottled version of their current formulation of their Blue/Black has the product reference 1950378.

Amazon.uk sells some bottles with that Manufacturer Part Number, and others that have the number 1950381.

 

I dont have any of the Blue/Black, but I did recently buy a bottle of the Quink Blue (not Washable Blue).

The Parker website lists its reference no. as 1950376.

The number underneath the barcode on my bottle is 3 501179 503769 (I, not Parker, underlined the common elements).

If you are interested in the current Blue/Black in cartridges, Parkerpen.com lists their (UK) reference number as 1950385.

 

Cheers,

M.

 

[Edit to add:] Sorry for the (blue) hyperlinks. I cannot get this to post without them being added to the text

Edited January 27, 2020 by Mercian

[ewills2]

Great review! Was unaware they had a new formulation thanks!

[WJM]

I like this new formulation of Quink Blue-Black less and less with every time I use it.

 

I initially like the new version when they released it, as I liked the color better than the old Parker's blue-black (although the new one I still would rather call a dark torquoise or a torquoise-black than blue-black).

 

But I found the behaviour of this new formulation to be pretty bad. In every pen I filled with this ink I get a poor ink flow. It is usable but very dry most of the time. The only exeption was Kaigelu with Bock nib and feed which were super wet and worked well enough with this ink.

 

It really falls out poorly in comparision with the alternatives. Waterman Mysterious Blue is pretty much identical to the old formulation of Quink Blue Black in color, and way better behaved than the new Quink. I think the newly released Hero Blue (the one sold in 40ml bottles) shows some similiarity in shade, especially when the Quink is still wet. Hero is wetter, darker, better saturated and cheaper.

 

Yes, I said it: Hero makes a better ink than Parker nowadays.

Edited February 6, 2020 by WJM

[Mercian]

I started my first cartridge of this ink last night.

I have put in to a 1994 Parker Vector with a nib that is marked ‘M’. I know that pen to deliver a good flow of ink.

 

After one day of limited usage my initial observation is that this iteration of Quink Blue/black doesn’t work well with the 90gsm ivory Clairefontaine paper in Rhodia Webnotebooks.
Its flow on that paper is poor. The poor flow means that not much ink gets laid down, and the ivory colour of the paper shows through the ink and makes it appear to be a teal-tinged blue.

 

I have not had the same issue with the 80gsm paper in Rhodia bloc pads, or with the paper in a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook.

Its flow on the Leuchtturm and on a WH Smith A4 refill pad is exactly what I have come to expect from Quink - the nib feels well-lubricated, and the ink dries quickly on the page.

 

My other initial observation is that (like many dye-based fountain pen inks) this ink has zero water-resistance.

 

I wonder what else I will learn as I make more use of it.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Mercian

[Mercian]

After using my Quink Blue/black for a few days now, I have this to add.

 

The ink definitely prefers paper that does not have smooth, hard coatings.
E.g. the paper in my WHSmith A4 refill pad has a coating. On that paper (& on Rhodia, Oxford Optik, etc) not much of the Quink gets laid-down, and so the colour of the words that I write is much less dense than one would expect from a ‘blue/black’. The colour appears lighter. On that paper Quink Blue/black appears to be a very dark shade of turquoise, or a dark-ish blue that has a slight greenish tinge.

 

I have now also tried the Quink on uncoated papers that are more-absorbent.
E.g. a cheap A4 pad that I bought in the 1990s, a pad of cheap notepaper whose sheets are the size of post-it notes, and a sheet of inkjet paper. I also used it to do a crossword in a newspaper.

On those papers, more of the Quink gets laid-down (or absorbed in to the surface of the paper), and the colour of my writing is much darker. On uncoated papers the ink appears to be a dark blue colour. The more-absorbent the paper, the darker the ink appears to be.

On absorbent paper the colour is much nearer to what I would expect from a ‘blue/black’.

 

i.e. the ink appears to be more ‘blue/black’ on cheap, uncoated paper than it does on e.g. Rhodia bloc pads.

 

I have not yet experienced any feathering from this Quink, but its line does get wider on absorbent paper than on hard-coated paper.

The absorbent papers also seem to suppress any ‘shading’ that the ink might offer, but they enable it to go down with a darker line, and I find the greater colour-density that they enable one to achieve to be far more pleasing to my eye than the ‘dark turquoise’/‘teal’ effect that is evident on e.g. 80gsm Rhodia paper.

Other users may of course prefer the ‘dark turquoise’ shade that this ink provides on hard-coated paper.

 

This ink appears to offer several colours within the same cartridge/bottle.
Whether or not it is ‘for you’ will depend on how much you like its appearance on the paper that you use most-often.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Mercian

[Mercian]

Just want to add the following photograph, which shows the teal colour to which this version/iteration/vintage of this ink gradually shifts.

 

I got this ‘Blue Black’ Quink in a pack of cartridges that I bought here in the UK, in October of 2020.

 

I took this photograph on 2023-05-04.

 

The writing below the lines written with my 1979 Parker 25 on 2021-09-20 is actually the same ink.
But I wrote it from my 1994 Parker Vector ‘M’, on 2020-11-29. Although it is ten months ‘older’ than the words written with the 25, it has stayed darker on the page.

 

The ink goes down on the page as a dark ‘navy blue’ colour, especially when written from the Parker Vector that I used for the writing in lower portion of the photo.

 

The paper is a delivery note that came with a different order, so is presumably ‘laser printer’ paper.

But I have found that this ink shifts to this, teal, colour on all the papers on which I have ever used it.
Including the ‘ivory’-coloured Clairefontaine paper that can be found inside the Rhodia Webnotebooks that I use for journalling.
Which notebooks are kept closed, inside a closed drawer.

i.e. this colour-shift is not an artefact of dyestuff degradation by incident light.
I think that it might be caused by a reaction between the dyestuffs and a particular chemical (perhaps a preservative?) that is in the paper.

If anyone has an ‘ink eraser pen’ - such as a Pelikan ‘Super Pirat’ - I think that they might be able to use it to shift this ink to this colour straight away.

 

Do please note that, at the time at which I am typing this, Parker has changed the EAN of their Quink ‘Blue black’ in cartridges from the one that is on the packet of cartridges that I bought.
In the past, changes to the EAN have coincided with the ink being reformulated by Parker, so the 2024 version of what Parker’s UK website currently calls “Blue and Black” ink may not be the same stuff as my ink, and it may not exhibit this colour shift.

[Mark from Yorkshire]

I have a more recent bottle and that does it as well. It is also identical after a month or so to waterman mysterious blue.