Alternative to Online Nachtblau (midnight blue) cartridges?

[stemp73]

Hi, looking for some help!

I've been using Online's kombi/combi cartridges in my Lamy Safari, and I really like their midnight blue (nachtblau), also called blue/black in some places.  (Review of ink here https://www.penexchange.de/forum_neu/viewtopic.php?t=31184, thanks to @Mercian)

It's a very grey blue-black.  Looks a little more blue when it goes on the page but dries to something more grey, with a hint of blue.  

 

However, it looks like they've discontinued them. They are shown as unavailable on Combi Ink Cartridge | ONLINE Shop (online-pen.com) and supply is drying up everywhere. So I'm looking for an equivalent in a bottle, but I'm struggling.

 

I've tried:

- Lamy Blue/black: Too light and too blue

- Diamine blue black: Too blue, not really much grey

- Cult Pens (Diamine) Deep Dark Blue: Way too saturated and too blue.

 

I'm considering trying Diamine Chopin. Looking at reviews, it seems like Mont Blanc Midnight Blue might be fairly close, but it's an expensive ink and I don't want to buy that just to try it out and find it also isn't right.

 

So.. .HELP!  Have any of you tried the Online Midnight Blue cartridges yourselves? If so, have you found anything in a bottle that's close?

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

Edited April 23, 2024 by stemp73
Adding link found by @mercian & spelling

[lapis]

Lamy's Bentoite (crystal ink series)?

Organics Studio's Manganese?

Visconti's Wheatfield with Crows?

Note: Those are all in bottles, but you can always fill your converters from them.

[Mercian]

I have no experience of Online Nachtblau.

 

But, if you desire a greyish blue-black, Rohrer & Klingner ‘Salix’ starts out on the bluer end of the blue-black spectrum, but it ‘cures’ to a grey-tinged colour.

If you find that ink to be too ‘blue’, I would also recommend Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black, which also turns grey-ish.

 

Or, for a darker blue/black, Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite (although that ink isn’t really very ‘grey’, and is not ‘inexpensive’).

 

After you have received a few recommendations for suitable inks, I advise you to have a look through the ‘Ink Reviews’ board.
Its ‘index’ thread is a good place to start . Linky!

 

Another good place to start looking for suitable inks yourself is the following thread:

 

N.b. I advise you to read/watch several reviews of any inks that get recommended to you.
That is because:

• different people’s cameras/scanners render colours differently
• different reviewers use broader or narrower nibs, or ‘wetter’ or ‘drier’ pens
• different reviewers use different types of paper

Ideally, you want to see reviews by people who use the same types of pen that you do, the same width/grind of nib that you do, and who write on the same type of paper that you do.
But of course it is highly unlikely that many people will use all the same ‘equipment’ that you do, so reading several reviews is a good way to get an idea of the ink’s range of behaviours from different pens/nibs/papers etc.

That said, I know that @namrehsnoom uses Lamy Safaris in different widths to write most of his ink reviews, so his reviews will be a good place for you to start. Especially his review of Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite 🙂

I also recommend the reviews by @Sandy1, who was for many years the most-thorough reviewer of inks on FPN, and who is much-missed.
Of the inks that I mentioned before, she reviewed e.g. Pelikan 4001 Blue-black and R&K Salix.
 

Another reason to consult several reviews is because different reviewers notice different things:

• is the ink ‘wet’-writing or ‘dry’-writing?
• does the ink shade/sheen?
• does the ink feather/bleed?
• is the ink difficult to clean, or does it clog pens?
• does the ink cause nib-creep?

Reading/watching several reviews of any ink gives you the best chance of being alerted to anything that would be a ‘deal-breaker’ for you before you buy the ink.

 

If, after you have read several reviews and want to try out an ink before buying an entire bottle, many retailers will sell you a ‘sample’ of a couple of ml of the ink.

 

I wish you good luck - and good fun too - in your search 

 

Slàinte,
M.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2024 by Mercian
Edited for fershlugginner FFEs. Comme d’hab.

[Mercian]

Ok, so I just found this:

https://www.penexchange.de/forum_neu/viewtopic.php?t=31184

 

From the comparisons photos that were posted there, I think that you might like the colour of Aurora Blue/Black, although I note that I have seen several comments that say that it is an ink that is very ‘dry’-writing.

 

That thread from penexchange.de could also be a useful guide to inform other members here of what Online Nachtblau looks like, and therefore enable them to offer better recommendations for you.

[carlos.q]

These cartridges appear available at Jetpens, Vanness and Amazon. 

[inkstainedruth]

@stemp73 Not in cartridges, but you might have a look at Noodler's Blue Upon the Plains of Abraham, a grey blue ink that's a Canadian exclusive (I got my bottle from Wonder Pens on a trip up to Toronto a few years ago. 

However, there are two caveats:

(1) I don't know if they have it in stock at the moment, or other Canadian retailers who might carry it.

(2) Noodler's inks tend to vary between batches quite a bit.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

I don't have the ink, and InkSwatch don't have it either, but you could use their color picker to find things that are close.... 

[stemp73]

Wow, thanks for the responses everyone!

@LizEF I hadn't seen the color picker before, that's really useful, thanks.

@Mercian thank you for the very detailed and helpful response. Finding that review of Online Nachtblau has helped tremendously also. 

 

I'm going to order a couple of inks that seem close and see how it goes.

 

I've been using task management apps (without success) for years now and recently decided to buy a new notebook and pen to try things a different way. I'm enjoying it all so much that I'm just finding excuses to write things.  Help like this from the community is only going to feed my new addiction! 🙂

[yazeh]

15 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

@stemp73 Not in cartridges, but you might have a look at Noodler's Blue Upon the Plains of Abraham, a grey blue ink that's a Canadian exclusive (I got my bottle from Wonder Pens on a trip up to Toronto a few years ago. 

However, there are two caveats:

(1) I don't know if they have it in stock at the moment, or other Canadian retailers who might carry it.

(2) Noodler's inks tend to vary between batches quite a bit.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

It has been discontinued

 

[yazeh]

I used a digital color meter to calculate the RGB values of your colour. Then converted them to hex and then put them in the Inkswatch calculator which @LizEF mentionned above:

Please note this approximative but here goes the list:

 

https://inkswatch.com/choice.html?hexColorChoice=545B74

 

 

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, stemp73 said:

@LizEF I hadn't seen the color picker before, that's really useful, thanks.

You're very welcome.  Unfortunately, now and then a swatch really looks nothing like reality (different monitors and different people making the swatches), but even so, it's a really good tool.

 

1 hour ago, yazeh said:

I used a digital color meter to calculate the RGB values of your colour. Then converted them to hex and then put them in the Inkswatch calculator which @LizEF mentionned above:

Please note this approximative but here goes the list:

 

https://inkswatch.com/choice.html?hexColorChoice=545B74

Thanks, @yazeh!

[Penguincollector]

  This is an American ink, so I don’t know what the overseas availability is, but this reminds me of Monteverde Azure Noir. I couldn’t find it outside of the box set on Amazon UK, but I did see your Online night blue kombi cartridges there. 

[XYZZY]

Welcome to FPN!

 

With the pictures on penexchange.de and your comment "Looks a little more blue when it goes on the page but dries to something more grey, with a hint of blue", I have to wonder if you'd be open to an iron gall ink.  Because it kinda sounds and looks like an IG anyhow.

[Mercian]

7 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

this reminds me of Monteverde Azure Noir. I couldn’t find it outside of the box set on Amazon UK,

Cult Pens here sells Azure Noir in bottles.

They’ve got it in the 30ml bottles, and in the 90ml bottles.

[inkstainedruth]

12 hours ago, yazeh said:

It has been discontinued

 

Oh bummer.  It was an interesting color, if a little on the dry side.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[stemp73]

A quick update, for anyone who is interested!

 

I tried Diamine Chopin, from the music series, and it's a very close match for the Online Nachtblau cartridges (well, at least with the paper and nib combination I'm using).

When both inks are wet, the Nachtblau is darker and clearly more blue.  But once dry, the blue fades from the Nachtblau and they are both a very grey-leaning colour, with a hint of blue.

Interestingly (at least for a newbie like me), the Diamine ink writes much smoother than the Nachtblau cartridges and there seems to be less variation in the flow.  Whether that's a difference in the ink, or due to one being a cartridge and one being in a converter, I don't now.

 

But anyway, mission accomplished. And it's cheap, too!

 

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions and posted links to really useful websites.  I'm sure I'll be using some of those in the future.

  

[yazeh]

@stemp73 glad you found a cheap solution  I like cheap

 

As @XYZZY said the colour you like is very close to Iron gall inks. They are waterproof inks and particularly suited for cheap papers. But they are dryish and need a bit more maintenance. As you're based in UK, you can always buy/try Essri:

http://www.registrarsink.co.uk/registrars_ink.html

 

However, the one hic with IG inks is that they have shelf life of 2 years approx and the emptier the bottle the risk of it going off happens. Plus you need to clean it every once in a while.

 

[Mercian]

1 hour ago, yazeh said:

As @XYZZY said the colour you like is very close to Iron gall inks. They are waterproof inks and particularly suited for cheap papers. But they are dryish and need a bit more maintenance. As you're based in UK, you can always buy/try Essri:

http://www.registrarsink.co.uk/registrars_ink.html

 

However, the one hic with IG inks is that they have shelf life of 2 years approx and the emptier the bottle the risk of it going off happens. Plus you need to clean it every once in a while.

If you do ever buy ESSRI, you need to know that it gets shipped in a posting-friendly plastic bottle.
The bottle is therefore gas-permeable, which means that the ink in it will ‘go off’ quickly as the hydrochloric acid in it gasses-off, and oxygen gets in.
(E.g. after decanting its contents, I wanted to dissolve some precipitates that were still in the shipping bottle, so I filled it with a solution of bleach, replaced its cap, and left the bleach to do its job. Within a day of doing so, I noticed that the label on the bottle was getting bleached by HCl outgassing. After three days it was almost completely white 😮)

 

I therefore spent a few £ to buy some brown glass ‘sirop’ (sic) bottles from an online vendor.

ESSRI ships in bottles that hold 110ml of ink, so I bought a 50ml ‘sirop’ bottle, and two 30ml ‘sirop’ bottles with airtight caps.
The bottles cost so little that I actually bought three sets of the bottles, in order to make the shipping costs less than the cost of the bottles 😁

 

As contact with atmospheric oxygen will accelerate the spoiling of the ink (as will light, hence my buying bottles made of brown glass), I decanted all my 110ml of ESSRI into my sirop bottles straight away (after first sterilising them with the stuff that parents use to sterilise bottles for babies).

 

I am using-up a 30ml bottle first. I will then use-up my second 30ml bottle.
When both of those bottles are empty, I will re-sterilise them and then transfer the ink from the 50ml bottle into them, using up the contents of the one that contains only 20ml of ink before the one that is full. Doing this should minimise the amount of time for which my ESSRI gets exposed to oxygen during storage.

 

This does sound like a faff, and it may put people off from buying the ink.
But it doesn’t take very long to do, and it does extend the shelf-life of an ink that I like very much.
And of course I will always have my sirop bottles sitting ready to accept the contents of my next ‘tanker’ of ESSRI 😊

[lapis]

Now that is all great help.

Thanks, Mercia !!!

To you and all others... don' ferget that that's always one more reason to hang onto old, empty, used ink bottles. Such a replacement is also due IMO to all inks in the 30-ml Diamine and Lamy "crystal series" bottles. Good bottles to keep are old and new MB shoes and (new) GvFCs.

[yazeh]

@Mercian thanks for posting that info.

I bought a few empty ink bottles that did the job