Montblanc vintage ink Blue~Black

[omarcenaro]

I had no idea that this blue-black vintage ink was permanent. But I should have known as the ink looked saturated.

I bought this ink a few years ago but mainly for the box and never used the ink. About 2 weeks ago I organized my inks and decided to us it. I filled my PenBBS 456 vacuum filler with it. It worked just fine until a few days ago when it had hard starts. Yesterday I could not get it to start so I pulled the plunger up a little bit when I pushed down on the plunger the pressure resistance caused the piston seal to pop off. I took the pen apart and found that the feed was all clogged up. I still have the feed soaking and will see if I can get a good pic of the feed. 

 

The ink is not marked as permanent so I just now decided to test it.

 

Regular copy paper. I used the blue-black and the Pilot ink as control sample.

 

Soak the paper in water:

Added some foam antibacterial and washed it off:

 

Let dry:

 

Result: Montblanc vintage Blue-Black is permanent as all get out. So unlike me you now know, be careful which pen you use this ink with. 

[arcfide]

Vintage Montblanc Blue Black is an iron gall formulation, and usually quite well behaved, but it does have all of the standard issues that you need to watch out for with Iron Gall ink. In particular, older iron gall inks can precipitate out due to the effects of evaporation and air, leading to small particulate in the ink. Additionally, when exposed to air over time, the same thing can happen. Iron Gall inks also tend to be more dry. Being Iron Gall, they are by necessity quite acidic when in their liquid form before they dry out on the page. This means that they can also interact very poorly with some modern inks which are quite alkaline. This requires a thorough cleaning when switching between these two types of inks, more so than you might usually be able to get away with. 

 

Being older, and probably quite saturated by this point, it's probable that you could have experienced any of the above, especially if you don't have a very excellent cap seal on the pen or do a lot of writing with the pen, since that will increase the likelihood that the iron gall will precipitate out and clog. 

 

On the other hand, as you have discovered, iron gall inks can be quite permanent. This ink used to be my goto ink with a MB 146 Le Grande with EF nib, before they changed the formulation. I really enjoyed it, and it was an excellent pen and ink combination. So much so, in fact, that it was basically my only ink and pen for years that I used with any regularity. 

[omarcenaro]

Thank you for the information. 

55 minutes ago, arcfide said:

Vintage Montblanc Blue Black is an iron gall formulation, and usually quite well behaved, but it does have all of the standard issues that you need to watch out for with Iron Gall ink. In particular, older iron gall inks can precipitate out due to the effects of evaporation and air, leading to small particulate in the ink. Additionally, when exposed to air over time, the same thing can happen. Iron Gall inks also tend to be more dry. Being Iron Gall, they are by necessity quite acidic when in their liquid form before they dry out on the page. This means that they can also interact very poorly with some modern inks which are quite alkaline. This requires a thorough cleaning when switching between these two types of inks, more so than you might usually be able to get away with. 

 

Being older, and probably quite saturated by this point, it's probable that you could have experienced any of the above, especially if you don't have a very excellent cap seal on the pen or do a lot of writing with the pen, since that will increase the likelihood that the iron gall will precipitate out and clog. 

 

On the other hand, as you have discovered, iron gall inks can be quite permanent. This ink used to be my goto ink with a MB 146 Le Grande with EF nib, before they changed the formulation. I really enjoyed it, and it was an excellent pen and ink combination. So much so, in fact, that it was basically my only ink and pen for years that I used with any regularity. 

 

[Mercian]

You should also know to not shake the bottle before filling a pen with iron-gall ink.

Over time, oxygen in the air reacts with ink in the bottle, and this causes iron salts to precipitate out in the bottle.
The bottle will slowly develop a layer of this sediment. You DON’T want any of the sediment getting in to your pen, or it can block the feed channels.

 

To clean your pen’s feed you will get the best results with a dilute solution of Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), or dilute Citric Acid, or dilute White Vinegar.

 

That Montblanc ink has not been manufactured for something like ten years now. Yours might all have oxidised in the bottle already. If I were you I would only use it in pens that are really easy to clean.

 

If you like its colour and its permanence, you could buy a fresh bottle of iron-gall blue-black ink. A fresh bottle should not have thrown any sediment yet.

Examples include ESS Registrars Ink, Diamine Registrars, Akkerman #10, Pelikan 4001 Blue-black, KWZ (various), Rohrer & Klingner Salix, Hero 232, Platinum Classic inks, and (IIRC) TWSBI blue-black.

 

Slàinte,

M.

[omarcenaro]

13 hours ago, Mercian said:

That Montblanc ink has not been manufactured for something like ten years now.

Oh yes, this bottle is certainly old.

The original price tag on the box says $5.50. That’s looks like 1970’s maybe 80’s. I don’t think there was much Montblanc for 5 bucks in the 2000’s.

 

Yeah the ink was certainly shook as I took it to work with me so it certainly slushed around before I filled the pen, now I I know.

 

After soaking the feed I could see “particulate” suspended in a yellow water. 

[txomsy]

That indicates to me that the IG had precipitated.

 

I had a bottle of MB Blue Black that I had bought in the late 80s. It went with me to the UK, back home, by car and boat, but mostly has stayed put in a dark place all the time and never gave me any issue until I finished it a couple of years ago.

 

So, I am not frightened of IG inks. Well treated, these inks are very durable. But excess oxygenation will oxydize the IG and make it insoluble. i suppose that is why MB changed the formulation to use nanoparticles in the last decade.

 

That's one of the things I like about RK Salix (besides color and behavior): for the prize here (~6-7 EUR) I can keep one bottle at work and another at home and not worry about agitation.

 

 

[niksch]

It's called iron gall, but I doubt it actually is IG.  

 

However, I actually search out and buy up this ink, within a reasonable price of course.  I love the flow, I love the color and because I'm contrarian, I love it because so many people hate it. But really, after MB Racing Green, it's my favorite ink color.

[SpecTP]

Is MB Blue-Black considered permanent like the Permanent Blue?

[niksch]

The original formulation was, but I'm not sure about the newer formula.

 

[Mercian]

22 hours ago, niksch said:

It's called iron gall, but I doubt it actually is IG.  

It was an iron-gall ink, up to about ten years ago.

Montblanc used to admit this on the ink’s packaging, specifying that users ought to rinse out their pens every 3 months (iirc) when using it.

 

They changed to it being dye-based only shortly after renaming the ink from ‘Blue-black’ to ‘Midnight Blue’.

 

More details can be found in the thread underneath this review (in order to view the images in the OP you may need to copy the urls, open a new tab, paste the url, but edit each one so that it starts “https://“ rather than “http://“).

 

Edit to add:

See also this review of Montblanc ‘Midnight Blue’ when it was first named as such, and was still an i-g ink.

And this post by lapis, in visvamitra’s review of the reformulated (non-i-g) version of ‘Midnight Blue’. 

[Mercian]

8 hours ago, SpecTP said:

Is MB Blue-Black considered permanent like the Permanent Blue?

The old i-g ink would be very water-resistant, and fairly lightfast too.

The newer dye-based ‘Midnight Blue’ may not be either of those things (I don’t know).

 

The ‘Permanent Blue’ is a pigment-based ink. It should be very lightfast.

[arcfide]

4 hours ago, Mercian said:

The old i-g ink would be very water-resistant, and fairly lightfast too.

The newer dye-based ‘Midnight Blue’ may not be either of those things (I don’t know).

 

The ‘Permanent Blue’ is a pigment-based ink. It should be very lightfast.

 

The new Midnight blue is not considered by MB to be water resistant. They changed over to their ISO certified pigmented line instead of their non-ISO certified IG formulation. This leaves Midnight Blue much like many other Blue Black inks. Naturally a little more resistant than typical, but not anything really intentional beyond the effects of the dyes used. 

[niksch]

Regardless, that old MB Blue-Black formulation is my favorite.  Followed closely by MB Racing Green.

[Doggy Daddy]

I wrote on a regular 3 x 5 notebook page with modern Montblanc Midnight Blue and immersed it in luke-warm water for approximately an hour. I was pleasantly surprised by the result. 

[georgeb]

On 3/10/2023 at 12:19 AM, niksch said:

Regardless, that old MB Blue-Black formulation is my favorite.  Followed closely by MB Racing Green.

I have an unopened bottle I can sell to you if you are interested.

[Nick T]

On 2/2/2023 at 5:29 PM, arcfide said:

On the other hand, as you have discovered, iron gall inks can be quite permanent. This ink used to be my goto ink with a MB 146 Le Grande with EF nib, before they changed the formulation. I really enjoyed it, and it was an excellent pen and ink combination. So much so, in fact, that it was basically my only ink and pen for years that I used with any regularity. 

What did you replace it with?

[stoen]

I use a MB 149 for 45+ years almost continuously. My favorite ink used to be the MB Blue-Black, 20+ years ago.

 

In the pre-Internet era, while hardly anyone who knew the facts about inks, was willing to explain what the maintenence cost of using such a parmanent ink was, it once happened that some residue of the lovely blue-black must have  skipped my attention and dried inside my pen. It was my mistake, since I misjudged how well it should have been rinsed, possibly also occasionally taken apart. I almost lost it. Had I sent it to MB, they would have replaced all the vintage parts, which I could not have prevented.

 

Yet, thanks to 10+ days of soaking, heating, luckilly having the nib unit not screwed-in too tightly, and using the right nib tool, I eventually succeeded in releasing the nib unit.

 

Then the inside of the barrel was accessible to water. After holding it for another week in distilled water, I finally succeeded in releasing the piston and the friction fit mechanism eventually. It was a great lesson to me.

 

Later I’ve learned that the old MB B-B was one of the less “well behaved” IG inks - I came across few of them much friendlier. Although I like IG inks, I somehow don’t regret this particular ink is not around anymore.

 

Last, but not least, IG inks don’t appear to be bleach resistant.

[arcfide]

23 hours ago, Nick T said:

What did you replace it with?

 

I spent some time using Noodler's 54th Massachusetts for a while (with all of the troubles that go with it) and then, I don't exactly remember how the exact transition went, but I ended up with MB Permanent Black for a while. By that point, I had started experimenting with more inks, and Platinum Blue Black really appealed to me. Nowadays, if I'm going to use an iron gall ink, Platinum Blue Black is always at the top of the list. If I'm going to use a standard blue black ink, then I have enjoyed Platinum, Waterman, and PIlot all quite well, and also Jacques Herbin Bleu du Minuit in the right pen. 

[stoen]

7 hours ago, arcfide said:

Nowadays, if I'm going to use an iron gall ink, […]

Please, take care of the maintenence routines. There are threads in the FPN discussing this. No matter how “pen friendlier” and gentler are the modern IG inks, as compared to traditional ones (such as vintage MB B-B), they still require more care for the pen than the dye-based inks.

Enjoy your trouble-free writing!