Permanent Archival Ink Recommendations?

[AmericanMonk]

Thanks for the quick and helpful replies!

 

11 hours ago, Mayo said:

Noodler's X-Feather blue is excellent, if the color is fit for your use.

I might pick up a sample of it at some point but I am concerned about the long dry times and how some color swabs make it look just as purple as Kung Te-Cheng. One of the things that I love about FP writing is watching the ink change as it dries and I think X-Feather would have me quite captivated! But that's more of a "sipping wine on a rainy lazy Sunday afternoon" activity rather than a "filling out forms or quickly scrawling out some notes and flipping the page to quickly scrawl more notes without smudging" activity. I'm currently emphasizing the latter. Does X-Feather dry quickly on cheap paper? I also love inks that shade from saturated to dark, rather than pale to saturated. X-Feather definitely ticks that box. I'll keep it in mind for the future.

 

 

14 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

Obviously, there will be expense and possibly disappointments involved, along the way on the part of early adopters, experimenters and reviewers.

Welcome to the beauty and the curse of FP writing, right? C'est la vie, especially with Noodler's. I have yet to run across a brand that hasn't disappointed me but I also have had fun playing with disappointing inks to see if I can make something good out of them.

 

I have over $500 worth of ink on my wishlists, not including samples of inks that are similar to inks that I already own but would still like to try. I'm happy to do my part and share my experiences for the community but until I get paid and/or receive samples for free I am forced to prioritize. This is an occasion where I need a solution first and can enjoy contributing to the community later. Luckily I doubt the FP community is holding its breath as it waits for me

 

 

15 hours ago, OCArt said:

Judging by Anderson Pen's ink comparison tool Noodler's Navy is a very dark blue and would work as a blue-black for most applications. Besides there are a lot of BB inks that are permanent such as the many iron gall inks.  I wouldn't be too worried about the price of Baltimore Canyon as the initial investment of any ink bottle will be spread over years of use.

 

My advice would-be to order the one ink you are really sure of and get samples of all the rest including some IG inks such as Diamine Registrars.

I was hoping beyond hope that you'd have experience with both Baltimore and Heron. Heron seems temperamental in that it can shade beautifully on Rhodia but gets dull and has minor behavioral issues on common papers. I realize that this is a common effect with absorbent papers but some inks handle it better than others. Your review of Baltimore is gorgeous and promising but if it has the same issues as Heron on cheaper papers then it isn't worth the extra cost. But if it behaves as good or better and/or retains some charm to its appearance on common papers then it is worth the extra cost. Obviously I can't expect you to have experience with Heron but thought I'd ask and find out.

 

I've never ordered from Anderson's before but I'll give them a whirl. If I'm not already over my ink budget I'll toss a sample of Diamine's Registrar into my cart when I do. Thanks for the link!

[arcfide]

20 minutes ago, AmericanMonk said:

Does X-Feather dry quickly on cheap paper? I also love inks that shade from saturated to dark, rather than pale to saturated. X-Feather definitely ticks that box. I'll keep it in mind for the future.

 

Anti-fascist Blue (X-Feather Blue) is a very good candidate for dilution if you are comfortable with that. The ink is so concentrated that you can get a much more shading, better behaved ink with some distilled water. On very poor paper the properties of X-feather will not cause as much of a dry time, but I find that I can get a better dry time by making it a little more diluted, perhaps at the cost of a little more tendency to feather. X-Feather with its very dark transitions in shading *is* apt to smudge, though, as the darkness comes from lots of ink on the page. 

 

 

[Mayo]

5 hours ago, AmericanMonk said:

I might pick up a sample of it at some point but I am concerned about the long dry times and how some color swabs make it look just as purple as Kung Te-Cheng. One of the things that I love about FP writing is watching the ink change as it dries and I think X-Feather would have me quite captivated! But that's more of a "sipping wine on a rainy lazy Sunday afternoon" activity rather than a "filling out forms or quickly scrawling out some notes and flipping the page to quickly scrawl more notes without smudging" activity. I'm currently emphasizing the latter. Does X-Feather dry quickly on cheap paper? I also love inks that shade from saturated to dark, rather than pale to saturated. X-Feather definitely ticks that box. I'll keep it in mind for the future.

My experience with the ink was that it only shows it's purple-ish, sheening side on very wet pens. It's dry time depends a lot, on my test with Rhodia it took almost a minute to dry (with a fairly wet medium nib), while on the cheapest paper available it dried in less than one second! I had to be really quick to get it to smudge. So for your purposes getting a sample to see how it behaves with your personal pen and paper combination will be ideal. Here's a scan of my tests:

Spoiler

 

 

On some of my previous posts I also tested it for lightfastness and bleach/water resistance, so feel free to check those out.

Edit: Here's how it did on a slightly less cheap school notebook paper:

 

Spoiler

 

[inkstainedruth]

On 4/9/2022 at 8:51 PM, AmericanMonk said:

I'd be happy to consider that ink!

 

I love Diamine's Skull & Roses range of bright blue with some pop (not entirely unlike your review of Baltimore on HP32), but I am happy to add a new ink or 3 to trade some sheen for some permanence. I'm also looking to add a blue-black. My paperwork doesn't need full protection, such as Noodler's Legal Blue or Lapis, but it is important for them to remain legible if they got, say, wet in the mail.

 

I also don't get to choose the paper. Some ghosting and spread are acceptable but bleed, feathering, and any spread that causes a letterform's counter to fill in (with M and smaller nibs) are not acceptable. If the lines stay crisp with little to no ghosting with a 1.1 Italic nib on most every day papers then it's an absolute winner, but I usually carry a pen with a F nib.

 

I loved Sheaffer's Blue-Black cartridges back when I had some. It shades and behaves well. I'd like to buy something similar—something that I can put in any pen (vs a cartridge) and has some bulletproofness.

 

I have Noodler's Upper Ganges Blue and Tolstoy. They're not bad but a little too pale and unruly to be an alternative to either Skull & Roses or Sheaffer BB. They're charming in wet pens but then feathering, ghosting, and/or long dry times crop up. They behave in dry pens but lose their charm.

 

Enter the following Noodler's inks:

• 54th Mass,
• Blue-Black,
• Navy,
• Bad Blue Heron, and now
• Baltimore Canyon

 

I'm planning on buying three of the above five. Navy is already in my cart, unless someone has a good reason to talk me out of it. But I don't think I need both 54th and Blue-Black. Nor do I think I need both Heron and Baltimore. Are you or @inkstainedruth in a position to compare/contrast these inks? or able to point me in the direction of someone who'd know? Baltimore looks excellent and behaves well on HP32 but is Baltimore Canyon worth the +57% price? Are any of them bad with cheaper papers? Are any (all?) of them similar to Ganges and Tolstoy, where they lose their charm on every day paper?

Sorry, I haven't tried any on your list of five besides 54th Mass and Baltimore Canyon.  Note that the sample of 54th Mass and the bottled version were quite different (the sample I had was a lot darker and more teal, while the bottle I have is lighter and bluer).

 I have tried Upper Ganges but found it to be too pale; although it did seem to be pretty waterproof, I wasn't sure my bank would be happy with me using it to write checks because it was such a pale color.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[stoen]

Of modern permanent inks, I mostly appreciate the Diamine Registrar’s ink.

 

It’s a classic looking blue-black IG ink, writing in beautiful lush blue and darkening as you write.

 

I’ve tested the permanence by leaving the text in the sunshine for years.

 

It is also fountain pen friendly, unless left to dry inside the pen.

 

A little bit less “powerful”, but still permanent is the Pelikan 4001 Blue Black.

 

Another choice is the violet greyish R&K Scabiosa.