EFNIR: Platinum Blue Black

[LizEF]

Extra Fine Nib Ink Review: Platinum Blue Black

This is review #87 in my series.  Here's the YouTube video:

Post-recording notes: Cleaning required a few extra flushes - probably because of the partial water resistance - but only plain water was required.  I did get the impression that if left in the pen for longer (I had it in 4 days), it might require an even greater effort.

And here is a screen of the final result, for those not interested in the video:

Scan of Completed Review:

Zoomed in photo:

 

Absorbent Paper Closeup (top is puzzle paper like thick newsprint, bottom is old 20lb copy paper):

Screenshots also available on Instagram: @zilxodarap

Previous Review: Noodlers FPN Dumas Tulipe Noire.

Want to influence the inky sequence?  Take the "next ink" poll.

Hope you enjoy.  Comments appreciated!

[yazeh]

Thanks Liz another excellent review!

That looks more blurple to my eyes... 

It would be funny if M and Q had an argument about changing their names

 

[A Smug Dill]

Yes, thank you again Liz, keep up the good work!

 

3 minutes ago, yazeh said:

That looks more blurple to my eyes... 

 

Platinum Blue-Black is a bit blurple, compared to Pelikan 4001 Blue/Black, Hero 232 Blue-Black, Diamine Registrar's Ink, etc. or even Rohrer & Klingner Salix.

[LizEF]

5 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Thanks Liz another excellent review!

You're welcome!

5 minutes ago, yazeh said:

That looks more blurple to my eyes... 

That has to be a consequence of the digitization process - it's pretty middle-of-the-road blue.

6 minutes ago, yazeh said:

It would be funny if M and Q had an argument about changing their names

Perhaps later - the next two episodes are already recorded.  Do you mean swapping their names, or just both of them changing their names to something else?

[LizEF]

2 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

Yes, thank you again Liz, keep up the good work!

You're very welcome!

2 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

Platinum Blue-Black is a bit blurple, compared to Pelikan 4001 Blue/Black, Hero 232 Blue-Black, Diamine Registrar's Ink, etc. or even Rohrer & Klingner Salix.

  There you go!  Apparently my eyes don't see the purple lean!

[yazeh]

6 minutes ago, LizEF said:

You're welcome!

That has to be a consequence of the digitization process - it's pretty middle-of-the-road blue.

Perhaps later - the next two episodes are already recorded.  Do you mean swapping their names, or just both of them changing their names to something else?

Well if one has to change their name is Makhabesh. It's a mouthful

So you can have them argue about their names..and why they do have to change them...

 

 

 

[mizgeorge]

Thanks as always Liz. Another really good review

 

This has always been an ink I want to love - I just don't really like the colour as much as other blue-blacks. I want it to be greyer somehow.

 

 

[sakib]

Awesome review Liz. Keep it going. A very unique way of presenting a ink. A small suggestion - if possible can u give a pic of the performance on absorbent paper. Woud greatly help, as most of us have to write on crappy papers.

[LizEF]

8 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

Thanks as always Liz. Another really good review

You're very welcome, and thank you!

 

9 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

This has always been an ink I want to love - I just don't really like the colour as much as other blue-blacks. I want it to be greyer somehow.

Yeah, I was hoping to enjoy another blue-black and instead found it really wasn't anything like any of my blue-black - because it's not really blue-black...

[LizEF]

3 minutes ago, sakib said:

Awesome review Liz. Keep it going. A very unique way of presenting a ink.

Thanks!  No plans to stop any time soon.

 

4 minutes ago, sakib said:

A small suggestion - if possible can u give a pic of the performance on absorbent paper. Woud greatly help, as most of us have to write on crappy papers.

My "absorbent paper" is in a puzzle book - similar to newsprint, but a bit thicker and not quite as bad.  Including it was less intentional and more coincidental since I was doing the puzzles anyway and noticing how the ink behaves.  In theory if it works well on this, it ought to work well on anything.  But lately I've been concerned that folks will think an ink is terrible just because it feathers on puzzle-paper.  That's why I added mention of the copy paper in more recent reviews (I just write the ink name on my copy paper).  But...

• my copy paper is really old (probably 20 years old), and I suspect it's better than anything you could buy today (paper being less important, therefore less valuable, today than it was 20 years ago)
• I find "ordinary" papers to be random and inconsistent as to whether or not they're good with FPs

So my hesitation is that this will essentially be meaningless - if by fluke I get good paper, everything will look great for me, but may not be for someone else.  If by fluke I get bad paper, most of my inks will seem awful when they might be just fine on a different paper.

 

On the other hand, if you test the ink on your paper from your pen, you'll know.

 

So, I would appreciate input from more folks on this.  Does performance on "some random copy paper" mean anything in an ink review?  Should I just stick with the puzzle book and post a picture¹ of how the ink does on it?  Or is it all meaningless and one really has to test it themselves?  Or....?

 

¹I might go back and take pics of inks I've used in the books, just to show that there are some that worked well in it - most inks feather a bit, some a lot.

[lapis]

Thanks for this review. Nine replies in one hour... I'd say that that says something, too....

 

[LizEF]

5 minutes ago, lapis said:

Thanks for this review. Nine replies in one hour... I'd say that that says something, too....

You're very welcome!  To be fair, at least half those replies are mine.   But yeah, some inks attract attention.

[mizgeorge]

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

 

 

So, I would appreciate input from more folks on this.  Does performance on "some random copy paper" mean anything in an ink review?  Should I just stick with the puzzle book and post a picture¹ of how the ink does on it?  Or is it all meaningless and one really has to test it themselves?  Or....?

 

¹I might go back and take pics of inks I've used in the books, just to show that there are some that worked well in it - most inks feather a bit, some a lot.

 

Puzzle book works fine for me.

 

If anything, I think consistency is more useful than random bad paper - a benchmark for both good and bad may make it easier to judge inks against each other as well as themselves. 

 

 

[LizEF]

41 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

I think consistency is more useful than random bad paper

Yes, that's why I decided to keep using the puzzle book even though all the puzzles are done.  And if all I do is add pictures from it, that would be the least extra effort...

[LizEF]

Just finished going through and then boxing up my pen boxes, and discovered that the boxes for my Nemosine Fissions included little boxes of black ink cartridges.  No idea whether Nemosine made this ink or got the carts from somewhere, but I've added them to my poll for review (even though they're probably unobtainium).

[arcfide]

So glad to see this! I absolutely love this ink, and it's one of the few inks that I went out and purchased multiple bottles of at the same time, and I have already gone through one bottle pretty quickly. Even when I'm not using it in a daily driver pen, I still manage to use this ink. 

 

For me, it just feels "rich" and the like. The dye color has a really great tone to it (it is a little blurple) that makes it more blue and enjoyable to me, with less boredom than your typical blue black or straight blue inks. Also, a lot of blue blacks tends to go green, and this one is one of the few that stays towards the reddish side until it fades. 

 

It's performance on lower quality papers is also among the best for me, so I really enjoy using it. I've also found it to just work well across almost all my nibs. The only place where I've found it isn't quite suitable is in my dry to very wet flex pens, such as my MB Expression Calligraphy. In that nib, which I selected by hand in store for the type of line I wanted, writes a very fine, relatively dry unflexed line but a wet flexed line. This just creates too much shading in this ink, going from a very pale, almost sky blue to a dark blue black. That contrast is a bit too much for me to take, so I use other inks in that pen, but I love this in a steel broad edge calligraphy pen or in the UEF Platinum #3776, where I think you get an ideal wetness and flow for this ink on paper. That makes for a really great "small areas, small writing" pen. 

[LizEF]

32 minutes ago, arcfide said:

less boredom than your typical blue black

Heretic!!

 

On a more serious note, thank you for your post.  It's great to have long-term users chime in with their experience - makes the thread so much more useful.  Glad this ink is getting lots of love from someone.

[A Smug Dill]

Personally, I like Platinum Blue-Black a lot because it is more colourful than other blue-black iron-gall inks, while still having a reasonable amount of iron-gall content (unlike R&K Salix and KWZI IG inks, although to be fair I haven't tried KWZI IG Blue-Black); and it sheens so readily, even on Rhodia Dotpad paper, without being a Diamine monster-sheener.

 

5 hours ago, LizEF said:

So, I would appreciate input from more folks on this.  Does performance on "some random copy paper" mean anything in an ink review? 

 

The issue/concern there is that, once you start taking steps to emulate particular use cases of individual faceless, non-homogenous members of the audience or readership, and/or make representations of doing so (e.g. by using ‘copy paper’), it just invites complaints from some that, ”but you're not reproducing my particular use case, I use El Cheapo™ 20¾lb copy paper at work, and your ‘random copy paper’ isn't like mine is this way or that in practice, but I can't even ascertain the fixed differences between the two types of paper, so your test results on ‘random copy paper’ are misleading to me.”

 

Mostly, people will think something is meaningful if it uses, or at least can be translated for, their own frames of reference; and I suspect a lot of casual readers of reviews don't even want to figure out or learn how to make the translation from your frame(s) of reference, and do the work of applying it mentally when they read reviews.

 

So, if you want to find out how an ink performs on the copy paper you use because it benefits you to know, and then choose to include and share what you've already found out because it takes little or no extra effort, that's great; but don't do so in the name of obliging others who want to know just what (user experiences and/or outcomes) they will be getting if they buy and employ the product in review.

[LizEF]

20 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

The issue/concern there is that, once you start ... it just invites complaints...

Complaints, more requests, etc. etc.  Yes, this is a big concern.  If I do much more than I'm already doing, it will start to feel like a burden rather than a project I'm interested in, and that will kill it for sure.   (Can I be blunt?  I don't understand how folks can blow $30+ on a pen and another $10+ on ink, but not $5.75 for a Rhodia dot pad to write on.  I get the whole office paper thing, but I mostly took notes on my own paper and rarely had to write anything on a print-out, and when I did, my Japanese F nib with Sailor Seiboku did just fine...  Ah well, that's just me being a hard-nose, I guess.  Just seems weird that some people don't seem willing to buy the nice paper to go with their pens and inks...)

 

31 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

Mostly, people will think something is meaningful if it uses, or at least can be translated for, their own frames of reference; and I suspect a lot of casual readers of reviews don't even want to figure out or learn how to make the translation from your frame(s) of reference, and do the work of applying it mentally when they read reviews.

Agreed.  And I'm still thinking that even those who want to do that work won't be able to unless they (and I) use a "controlled" paper - that is, a paper that has some sort of consistency, like our popular FP-friendly papers that are the same batch after batch and no matter where you are in the world.  In my experience, and that reported by many FP users, other paper types are completely inconsistent.  I can buy laser printer paper from Target, find it's fabulous, call my friend across town, who runs off to their (different) Target, and lo and behold, theirs isn't friendly at all.  So what good is it if I review this paper?

 

Where any person's paper falls in the range between newsprint and (e.g.) Rhodia is something they themselves will have to test (and not rely on, since the next batch may have completely different attributes).

 

22 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

So, if you want to find out how an ink performs on the copy paper you use because it benefits you to know, and then choose to include and share what you've already found out because it takes little or no extra effort, that's great; but don't do so in the name of obliging others who want to know just what (user experiences and/or outcomes) they will be getting if they buy and employ the product in review.

Thank you!  I tend to want to be obliging, but as mentioned above, a little might be OK, but not a lot, and not a little now and a little more later, and then a little more....  Your advice is appreciated.

 

[yammering deleted]  And, while I've been yammering on to you, I've realized that how the ink performs on various papers is probably in other reviews, and my point was to fill a tiny EF-sized gap in the review collection...  Yeah.  This is outside my scope.

Since I already use the puzzle paper and comment on it in the review (and find it both interesting and useful) and the picture will be more objective than my description, it makes sense to include a picture, but it doesn't seem to make sense to include more.

 

Thanks for helping me "talk it out"!

 

If anyone else has thoughts, I'd love to read them - I like having lots of opinions to help my brain stay out of blind spots...

[Sailor Kenshin]

Thanks for another fun review!  I have a few of the carts, and this was my beginning ink for the Preppys I got long ago.  They did not have a purple cast, nor a long dry time, but could be very hard starters, and eventually wore the color plating off my Preppy nib.  😭