I figure we need something to get the conversation going.
We hear a lot about popular inks like Iroshizuku Kon-Peki, Noodler’s Black, and Waterman Serenity Blue all the time. Let’s start talking some inks that sadly don’t get as much attention as they actually deserve.
What’s your favourite underrated ink?
I think workhorse type inks are some of my favourite underrated inks. Aurora Black doesn’t get as much love as it actually deserves. It’s a great workhorse ink. Nothing really fancy, but it just works. I like Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue way more than I thought I would. It’s very dry and does a great job of controlling some of the firehose pens in my collection.
I need to start experimenting with inks. Currently Montblanc Permanent Black goes into all of my pens, although I’m waiting on a Pelikan M800 which will come with a bottle of Pelikan 4001 Black, which I’m very much looking forward to writing with.
I started with Preppies, Safaris, and Sport/Perkeos which led to being able to expand the pen (and ink) collection pretty quickly. By this point, most of them have a default or a few defaults that I know they work well with and just get refilled regularly. Where I can, I try to match pen and ink, but that’s secondary to what works well.
I own zero entirely unused inks, which means (to me) that I have just about the right number of options.
Not averse to swapping some samples, not sure if this community has the traction or how we’d set it up since DMs aren’t private. Not that they were on reddit either, but more servers / admins involved in the process turns it into a different question I suppose.