Writing Down the Ink #10: Platinum Blue-Black

Update 2013 Oct 06: Fantastic FPN post by Dillon Ang about his life long experience with Platinum Blue-Black in.

Update 2013 Mar 22:  Please note that Platinum indicates their blue-black ink is a ferric tannic acid ink. That means it’s an iron gall ink. Read what Platinum has written about it here (comes after the information about their pigmented inks). Don’t be afraid! Just be sure to clean your fountain pen periodically, especially using any ink with great water resistance qualities like this one. Platinum Blue-Black is one of the great inks on the market, IMHO.

• FPN thread listing some of the iron gall inks here.
• Richard Binder’s informative Inks: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Original post below…

Platinum Blue-Black has become one of my favorite fountain pen inks. It’s free-flowing-ink-ness has been consistent across all nine eight pens in the collection. Er, hmmm, ten nine pens. Look, there’s a Sailor Realo in the mix! How’d that happen?

I was introduced to Platinum Blue-Black by a cartridge that came with my Nakaya. Once upon a time, I forgot to flush the Nakaya after using the Platinum ink. Later on, re-inked with my much-loved Noodler’s Black, the pen refused to write at all! Fortunately, flushing corrected whatever chemical reaction was goin’ on and I’ve not made that mistake again when switching inks.

Platinum Blue-Black reminds me a lot of Waterman Blue-Black—not in color but in the qualities of the ink. Waterman Blue-Black is far more blue, of course, with Platinum Blue-Black being on the purplely side of things. Both inks flow easily and smoothly in even the fussiest of my pen nibs (aka the Danitrio EEF). I was deeply disappointed in Waterman Blue-Black’s coffee ring resistance. Platinum Blue-Black, however, holds up quite nicely to the occasional coffee cup drips. I like that. Check out the third scan for the coffee rings.

Over the month of November (NanoWriMo, anyone?) a new experiment with the pens will be employed. Basically, having come up with an easy-for-moi-way to track how many words and/or pages it takes to write out a single pen, I’m finally going to obsessively track this information. More about that project in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile I’m pondering whether Platinum Blue-Black could be the one of the “steady two or three inks” that comprise my inks? That continues to remain the question of my journey through my inks. For moi, Platinum Blue-Black is a “keeper” candidate.

Note about the following scans: The Nakaya Piccolo seems to have burped a bit of grey ink in the first scan. That sample was written several weeks ago and I’m not sure what happened with it. This pen’s representation of Platinum Blue-Black is better found in the remaining scans.

Platinum B-B on Rhodia No. 18 (side-stapled)

Platinum B-B from my Rhodia Webbie Ink Journal

Platinum B-B on Staples Laser Paper 105gsm