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Examining Noodler’s Ink Part II

By on June 15, 2024
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For your writing pleasure, we have tested 10 more Noodler’s-brand inks. In Part I we delved into the various controversies, merits and problems with Noodler’s Ink. To read about that, please click on the Part I link.

10 Noodler’s inks are on display here as a color-fast testing measure. The sheet on the left has the test proof that was stored in darkoom. The page on the right shows how some of the inks faded after 9 months in the sunlight.

Today’s ink spent 9 months in our sunniest window for a light-fast test. We also tested them for a pH reading, to verify or deny Noodler’s claim that all of its inks are pH neutral.

Let’s start with the color-fast (or light-fast) testing. It is always interesting to see what colors fade. “Black Swan in Australian Roses” is a red-black color that held up really well under prolonged UV exposure–hardly any fading or change in color. “Asian Ship” is a stunning deep pink. Unfortunately, it faded to nearly invisible. “Ottoman Rose” is a lovely purple with dark undertones. However, it fades rather badly in sunlight to a red-brick color, though shaded lines fade almost completely.

Another American Civil War-themed ink is called “House Divided.” It s a gray ink with some blue-ish undertones. On our Rhodia test pad it seemed to be surprisingly feathery. When it set in the sun for 9 months, it faded to a pale reddish pink…a fitting change for an ink based on the bloodshed of the war.

The blue inks we tested are surprisingly strong. “Bad Belted Kingfisher” is a nice dark blue that some might say borders on blue-black. It definitely doesn’t seem to lose an ounce of color. “Midway Blue” is one of the many World War II-themed inks. It is a bright, medium blue, which also doesn’t seem to fade in the sun.

“Army” green has a certain camouflage flair as an earthy yellow-green that is more green than yellow. UV light tends to fade out the yellow parts, leaving behind a darker green.

“Green” is close to an emerald green color at the start. UV light fades out its yellow properties and leaves behind a darker, bluer green.

Ben Bernanke was the chairman of the Federal Reserve for 8 years, overseeing the worst of the Great Recession. The owner of Noodler’s Ink seems rather obsessed with the guy and has, I think, created several Bernanke-themed inks. We tested “Bernanke Black.” It is a nice black when fresh. UV light fades it a bit to brown.

Whereas yellow is what faded out of the green inks above, the red is what fades out of “Overlord Orange,” another WWII ink. After prolonged exposure to the sun, the pumpkin orange fades to a paler yellow.

For those, like me, who haven’t taken high school chemistry in more than 30 years, the pH scale runs from 0 for the most acidic to 14 for the most base/alkali. A 7 is pH neutral, like distilled water. Aside from “Asian Ship,” most of the inks don’t stray especially far from pH neutrality. Here are our results, after we calibrated our testing equipment.

Noodler’s Ink                                  pH Result:
Black Swan in Australian Roses    8.5
Asian Ship                                            3.1
Ottoman Rose                                    8.6
House Divided                                    8.5
Bad Belted Kingfisher                      7.3
Midway Blue                                       8.5
Army                                                     8.4
Green                                                    7.7
Bernanke Black                                  8.7
Overlord Orange                               7.3

Please remember that the pH doesn’t necessarily mean anything with regard to how it will behave in your pen. It is a raw data point. How it will blend with the chemistry of your ink sac, converter plastic and seals is an entirely different matter.

Examining Noodler’s Ink Part 1

By on September 10, 2023
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The one ink brand everyone is always talking about is Noodler’s Inks. People either love it or hate it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle ground. As such, we want to add our two cents to this conversation, and we surprised ourselves with our tests and findings.

Controversy seems to follow in Noodler’s wake, and, yet, it doesn’t seem to disrupt people’s passion for the ink. From the stains-everything-it-comes-into-contact-with Baystate Blue to clever (and occasionally offensive to some) ink names and label designs, Noodler’s is always a top-selling ink.

I first got hooked on their ink with “Antietam” ink. As an armchair Civil War historian, I knew Antietam was this single bloodiest day of fighting in all of America’s wars. There were nearly 23,000 casualties at that battle. I got a macabre kick out of the Antietam ink looking like fresh blood when wet and dried blood when dry. It remains my red ink of choice. The ink has never clogged my pens or created any problems.

However, my favorite of their ink names is “54th Massachusetts.” As a regiment, it is the most famous African-American regiment of the Civil War. If you’ve seen the movie “Glory,” with Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick, it is that regiment. The American uniforms in the Civil War were blue. The men of this regiment were black. The ink color is blue-black. A clever ink pun. Unfortunately, as beautiful as the ink is, it clogs the hell out of my pens.

As a matter of fact, virtually every other Noodler’s Ink I have ever written with clogs my pens. As such, the only ink I use is Antietam, and I don’t recommend any other Noodler’s to anyone, unless they are only writing or drawing with dip pens.

Here are 11 swatches of Noodler’s Ink. The samples on the left were the control samples. The inks on the right were in the sun for 9 months.

Nevertheless, when I bought a large collection of ink several years ago, it came with a large selection of Noodler’s. As such, Dawn and I thought we’d put it to the test. Today’s selection remained in my sunniest window for 9 months. We also pH tested the ink to see how potentially corrosive it might be. As a quick refresher the scale between acid and base runs from 0 through 14, with 7 being neutral, such as pure distilled water. As always, we calibrated our testing equipment before testing the inks.

We were absolutely stunned by how light-fast these colors were. At worst, they lost a little of their luster and vibrancy after 9 months of sunlight. Most didn’t lose anything! Very impressive.

Noodler’s Ink also claims its is pH Neutral. We did not find that to be the case in these 11 inks sampled. However, they were much better regarding pH neutrality than many other brands. The important thing to keep in mind is that just because an ink is pH neutral doesn’t mean it doesn’t have ingredients that will still corrode your rubber ink sacs, diaphragms and seals. We did not test these inks in rubber ink sacs. The pH results below are simply raw data points.

Noodler’s Ink Name     pH

41 Brown                     8.4
Kiowa Brown              8.5
Golden Brown            8.1
Cayenne                      7.8
Apache Sunset           7.5
Polar Green ’09          8.7
Dark Matter                8.6
Nightshade                 8.4
Purple Heart               8.5
Gruene Cactus           8.3
Zhivago                        8.7

In conclusion, these 11 Noodler’s Ink were amazing for their color-fast testing. The pH is a little on the base or alkali side but no where near as far off the mark as many other ink brands.

Loose Ends Ink Test

By on June 4, 2023
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While wrapping up our ink tests in 2021, we had a bunch of loose bottles of ink that we tested on the same pieces of Rhodia paper to save paper and space. I left these test samples in the window for six months, and Dawn and I calibrated and tested the pH on these samples at 75.6-degrees Fahrenheit and 50% humidity.

Check out how UV light effected our hodge-podge selection of ink by Sheaffer, DeAtramentis, Iroshizuku, Monteverde and Waterman

As always, we found the results interesting. However, these results are simply raw data. How the chemistry of the inks reacts to the chemistry of a pen’s ink sac or converter is not necessarily dictated by the pH level of the ink. For example: You’ll see below that Waterman Serenity Blue is very acidic with a pH at 2.7, but we’ve used it in vintage pens for years without it doing anything other than standard wear on ink sacs over 5 to 10 or more years. Many dealers other than myself find Waterman inks to be a gold standard of safety for use in vintage pens.

You can see in the photo that most of the ink fared poorly in the light-fast UV test. The Sheaffer inks were the Czech Republic-made variety in blue-black, blue and purple. Their colors are quite pretty when freshly dried. UV light makes the blue-black a faded black and grey. Blue fades badly to a blue-black, and the purple almost complete disappears!

De Atramentis Black Rose holds up reasonably well, though it fades a little. Red Rose fades by about 50%.

We had 2 leftover Iroshizuku inks. The green Fukurokuju is a lovely Irish mint of a color, but it fades really badly in UV light. I’m also a fan of the medium-grey Fuyu Syogun, which has hints of purple and blue. Unfortunately, it fades to almost invisible.

Up next were our first looks at bottled Monteverde ink. Blue Horizon and California Teal are both gorgeous. If you lay it down too wet, it has some nice sheening. Yet, the blue faded to purple and the teal turned grey! Monteverde Black faded heavily to a reddish-grey. Amazingly, Mandarin orange held its color really well. Napa Burgundy faded a bit but generally held its color better than most of the other Monteverde inks.

Last but not least was Waterman’s Serenity Blue. Just about every expert I know insists it is the same formula as Waterman’s Florida Blue, but I swear I see a change. Unfortunately, it behaves much like the old Florida Blue by fading pretty drastically in the sun.

Please look below for the pH readings on all of our inks tested. As a quick refresher, 0 to 6.9 is on the acid side of the scale, with 0 being the extremely corrosive end of the scale. 7 is pH neutral, like pure water. 7.1 to 14 is alkali or base, with 14 being the extremely corrosive side of that half of the scale. Again, our pH results don’t guarantee that the ink is corrosive in your pen, as the chemistry of the ink might mix differently with the chemistry of your ink sac or converters.

SHEAFFER:
Blue-Black                    4.5
Blue                                3.6
Purple                            5.1

IROSHIZUKU
Fukurokuju                   8.7
Fuyu Syogun                 9.6

MONTEVERDE
Horizon Blue                6.5
California Teal              7.4
Black                               4.4
Mandarin                       7.7
Napa Burgundy            6.9

WATERMAN
Serenity Blue                 2.7

Caran D’Ache Chromatics Face the UV-pH Challenge

By on September 6, 2022
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Swiss pen maker Caran D’Ache is most famous for its precision engineering on its line of ballpoint pens. They make nice fountain pens, too, but it is the company’s ballpoints that the world knows best. Yet, as so many pen makers now do, it also decided to enter the lucrative fountain pen ink market.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of Caran D’Ache Chromatic inks before and after undergoing 3 months of UV sunlight testing.

Caran D’Ache Chromatic Inks are a daring entry, indeed. From their hexagonal bottles that tip to fill to the last drop to their bright and cheery colors, Chromatics made an instant splash on the scene.

Naturally, we wanted to know how well these inks hold up to UV light from the sun and where they register on the scale of a pH test. We placed this sample in our sunniest window for 3 months. We also used our pH meter, which was calibrated to the heat and temperature of our testing station before testing the inks.

The results of our test were surprising. I falsely suspected that there might be some heavier pigmentation in the “Chromatic” inks that would make them shine and dazzle a bit on the page. However, virtually all of the ink colors lost seemingly 85 to 90% of their color, fading heavily from view. “Electric Orange” all but disappeared. Even a stalwart color such as “Cosmic Black” faded to a medium brown, and it had the most staying power.

The pH test results ranged all over the map. As a quick refresher on chemistry, a pH number of 7 is pH neutral like pure water. The closer to 0 something becomes the more acidic it is. The closer to 14 it goes, the more alkali or base something is. In theory, you want an ink that is pH neutral, BUT we have no idea how the chemicals in each ink will react to the chemicals of the ink sacs, converters, inkfeeds and the like. We have found some “neutral” inks to eat through ink sacs rapidly, while some seemingly alkali or acidic inks don’t bother a pen’s parts at all. The following is simply raw data for you to do with as you please.

COLOR:                              pH Score:
Cosmic Black                      6.9
Electric Orange                  8.9
Vibrant Green                     4.4
Idyllic Blue                          3.1
Infra Red                             8.2
Ultra Violet                         7.6
Magnetic Blue                    3.7
Organic Brown                   4.5
Hypnotic Turquoise         N/A

A few of the things that stand out to us are that Cosmic Black is almost perfectly neutral. Aligning with more of our past experiments, the blues were fairly acidic. Yet, playing against stereotype, the red and purple were closer to neutral. Green remains quite acidic, which is expected, but the brown also was acidic, which wasn’t expected.

As always, I hope you found this snippet of ink data helpful to your quest for the perfect ink for you.

Iroshizuku Ink Gets UV & pH Tested

By on June 29, 2022
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No one should be surprised by the meteoric rise of Iroshizuku inks on the fountain pen scene. Japan’s finest ink makers have created dozens of colors and hues that offer vibrancy and shadowing while never clogging a vintage or modern fountain pen.

We picked up 24 bottles of this amazing ink and have submitted them to our rigorous UV and pH testing. Each of the following inks was placed in one my sunniest windows between July 16, 2021 and October 16, 2021. We calibrated our pH meter and tested these inks at 75.6ºF at 50% humidity. As a quick reminder, on a pH test, 0 is the extreme limit for acidic, 7 is neutral and 14 is the extreme end of alkali or base. Click the individual photos for a closer look.

In many of our tests, blue inks tend to be very susceptible to UV light. Not Iroshizuku! Unfortunately, many of its other colors fade badly. The images certainly explain more than I can. Nevertheless, I love the peachy salmon of a late summer sunset that is Fuyu Gaki ink, and like a sunset it fades almost entirely. The nearly emerald green of Shin Ryoku turns turquoise. The blue-black Fuyu Syogun turned a light-fog grey. And the black Take Sumi stayed dark but turned dark brown.

When it comes to pH, these are simply raw data points. We do not know specifically how they interact with the chemistry of the ink sacs and piston parts of your pen. Most of these Japanese inks are on the shallow end of the base depth chart.

Color                        pH
Murasaki-Shikibu  8.1
Chiku Rin                 8.8
Shin Ryoku              8.4
Juro Jin                    9.0
Shin-Kai                   8.4
Asa Gao                    8.4
Fuku Gaki                8.6
Yu Yake                    8.5
Kosa Mosu               9.1
Momiji                      8.9
Tsutsuji                    8.7
Yamabudo               9.1
Syo-Ro
Ku-Jaku                    8.5
Tsuki-Yo                   8.5
Ama-Iro                    8.8
Fuyu Syogun           8.5
Kiri-Same                9.0
Kon-Peki                  8.7
Tsuyu-Kusa             8.7
Aji-Sai                      9.2
Tsu Kushi                9.0
Ina-ho                      9.0
Take Sumi               8.3

J. Herbin Ink Goes Under the Sun

By on May 4, 2022
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French inks haven’t previously undergone our rigorous testing, and we were excited to give them a UV light-fast test and pH test. We purchased a small collection of a dozen different colors of J. Herbin.

We started this test on March 7, 2021, by placing a sample of 13 inks in our sunniest window.

We test these J. Herbin inks to see how well they can withstand UV light and to see where they rank on the ol’ pH meter.

Believe it or not, this was our first time writing with J. Herbin ink. What really struck us was the vibrancy of the dry ink on the page. Of the colors I liked best, Rose Cyclamen really pops with a purple-pink splendor. Dawn’s favorite color is the electric turquoise blue of Bleu Pervenche. Eclat de Saphir is a solid daily blue. And my new permanent addition to my daily writing is the Amber de Birmanie. It is an incredible orangy brown.

Unfortunately, 3 months of direct sunlight does not treat these inks well. All of the colors except the gold metallic ink bleach substantially in UV light. You can see the damage in the photo. Some of the really drastic changes include Rose Cyclamen turning bright, light bubble-gum pink; the blue-black Bleu Nuit turns a pale, faded purple and Violette Pensee disappears almost completely! Larmes de Cassis turns from purple to pink.

The following show the pH results for each ink. We actually had three different bottles of the Bleue Nuit, Orange Indien and Bleu Pervenche. The labels on the outside of the bottle were different, so we list these two inks by their label results, too. As a quick refresher in chemistry, a pH number of 0 is as acidic as a chemical can be. 7 is neutral, like pure water. And 14 is the maximum extreme of alkali/base.

Perle Noir                          7.6
Cafe des Iles                     3.4
Rose Cyclamen                4.1
Bleue Nuit                         4.0 (Green Label)
Bleue Nuit                         6.9 (White & Blue Label)
Orange Indien                  4.9 (Green Label)
Orange Indien                  6.9 (White & Blue Label)
Bleue Myosotis                 2.2
Rouge Fuchsia                 4.6
Bleu Pervenche                7.0 (White & Blue Label)
Bleu Pervenche                6.2 (Green Label)
Eclat de Saphir                 6.4
Violette Pensee                 4.4
Amber de Birmanie         5.8
Larmes de Cassis              7.1

Levenger’s Ink Kicks Ass!

By on November 12, 2021
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Mathematical and computer genius Alan Turing famously said, “Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.” In addition to being one of my all-time favorite quotes about people, it seems to apply to the world of fountain pen inks, too.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of Levenger’s ink left in the sun for 3 months and the proof sample saved in the dark.

Ink collectors today understandably go ga-ga for Iroshizuku, Diamine, ColorVerse, J. Herbin, Noodlers and many other brands. Yet, often overlooked, is Levenger’s Ink. In many respects, Levenger’s kicked off the ink-color craze a decade or two before our current manufacturers and spectrum were readily available. Levenger’s has had scores of inks of every hue available since some time in the 1990s. Better yet, they are far more affordable than the competition.

Nevertheless, I kinda blew them off…until I stumbled into a large collection for sale. When Dawn and I started testing them for UV light fastness and pH balance, we were blown away.

We started testing 17 colors in March. From March 7, 2021, through June 7, 2021, we hung these samples in the sunniest window of our house. Afterward, we tested the ink still in the bottles with a pH meter calibrated to 21ºC.

Here is a side-by-side image of Levenger’s inks left in the sun for 3 months and the sample proof left in the dark.

Without a doubt, these are the most consistently light-fast inks we have tested to date. Even the worst-hit inks were still very close to their original colors. Blue Bahama likely lost the most vibrancy, but it is still easily read and distinguished. Cardinal Red faded to a rich pink, but it is still quite legible. Raven Black, Gemstone Green and Greystoke got DARKER in the sun!

Given the great results from the light-fast testing, we feared the worst with the pH tests. BUT! We were only further dazzled. Many of the inks were very close to neutral, and none of the inks veered off the spectrum of acidic or alkali.

As a basic chemistry refresher, 7 in a pH test is neutral. Distilled water is 7. The closer to 0 you go, the more acidic something is. In the opposite direction going up to 14 is more base or alkali. In theory, you don’t want an acid or a base sitting in your ink sac for too long. Yet, one thing we always like to remind people is that regardless of what the pH result is, we do not know the chemistry of the ink nor how it interacts with your rubber ink sacs, celluloids or converters and the like. Depending on the chemical reaction between the ink and what it is resting in, a neutral ink can do damage and an acidic ink might be safe. The pH measurement is simply a data point we find fascinating, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate which inks are safest for your pens. With that in mind, here are our Levenger pH results:

Ink Color              pH Measurement
True Teal                        7.1
Empyrean                      6.8
Blue Bahama                 6.6
Skies of Blue                 7.3
Cobalt Blue                   8.0
Regal                             7.2
Amethyst                      8.4
Raven Black                 8.3
Claret                            8.7
Pomegranate               8.3
Shiraz                           8.7
Cardinal Red               6.8
Blazing Sunset            6.7
Cocoa                           7.3
Forest                           7.1
Gemstone Green        7.2
Greystoke                    7.4

As always, I hope you find this information to be interesting and enjoyable.

Strong Enough for a Man; pH Balanced for a Fountain Pen?

By on September 1, 2021
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One of the many great aspects of marrying a scientist is the gadgetry. Intrigued by my ink-fast tests  with UV light, Dawn decided to get a professional pH meter to test our ink for corrosiveness. If you remember basic chemistry from high school…which I barely do…you will remember that we have acid on one side of a scale and base/alkali on the other. The scale ranges from 0 to 14. 7 is neutral like distilled water. The further you move away from 7 in either direction is more corrosive. The 0 side is acid and the 14 side is base/alkali.

You would think that all inks are hovering around a 7 to be safe in your pen and on paper. We certainly did.

Holy cats! We were wrong.

First you saw these Pelikan Edelstein inks in our UV ink fast test. Now we’re going back and checking their pH balance!

For years I told people…as I was told by many pen collectors and dealers before me…that you can always trust simple blue and black inks from the major pen manufacturers. However, just our initial testing indicates that might not be the best advice any longer.

Before I go on, let me preface the following by saying that we are not chemists. We feel confident in our results from our testing. However, we do not know the chemistry of the ink interacting with ink sacs, celluloid, gaskets, seals and other assemblies inside your pens. Our pH testing is simply raw data we gather from bottles of ink we have collected. Yet, it might help shed some light if you are experiencing trouble with certain inks interacting poorly with your vintage or modern pens over time.

Having recently written about Pelikan Edelstein inks in an ink-fast test, I thought I would revisit these inks for our pH testing. For those keeping score at home our meter and inks were tested and calibrated at 24ºC.

Pelikan Edelstein Amethyst               5.6
Pelikan Edelstein Aquamarine          3.3
Pelikan Edelstein Aventurine             6.4
Pelikan Edelstein Garnet                   6.5
Pelikan Edelstein Jade                       5.3
Pelikan Edelstein Olivine                    6.0
Pelikan Edelstein Ruby                       7.9
Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire                 3.7
Pelikan Edelstein Smokey Quartz       6.5
Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite                7.3
Pelikan Edelstein Topaz                      6.4
Pelikan Old Version Violet                   2.7
Pelikan Modern Violet                         3.4
Pelikan Brilliant Red                           6.9

Again, I’m not a chemist, and I have not studied how these inks interact chemically with ink sacs and other pen parts.

That said, what really strikes me as fascinating is that the “traditionally safe” blues such as Sapphire and Aquamarine are really acidic. I love Edelstein Sapphire and use it more than any of these other colors, and I would never have guessed it was as acidic at it is.

Also fascinating, I’ve been told for years never to put red ink in an ink sac, but Garnet, Ruby and Brilliant Red are among the closest inks to test near pH neutral.

Again, the chemicals in the ink might interact differently with the chemical compositions of our pens, but we find this to be a really fun look into our favorite inks. Many more UV and pH tests to come!

Pelikan Edelstein Inks Go Under the Sun

By on June 15, 2021
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I feel that the harsh news must be tempered.

I LOVE Pelikan pens. It is my favorite modern pen brand. I LOVE Pelikan’s Edelstein inks. They are so vibrant and beautiful. I had extremely high hopes for testing them and having far better results than standard Pelikan inks. (I wrote a travel journal at 17 when visiting Germany and bought my first bottle of Pelikan Konigsblau Tinte—King’s Blue Ink, or Royal Blue by regular English naming conventions. I can barely read it, the ink is so faded after nearly 30 years.)

Look how vibrant and beautiful Pelikan Edelstein inks look when fresh on the page. Do you see what happens to them after 3 months in direct sunlight?

As fate would have it, I bought out an ink collection this past winter. There were more than 270 bottles of ink. Among the bottles were 12 different colors of Edelstein ink and 3 bottles of standard Pelikan inks, which I had not previously tested. Also included in this test are two non-Pelikan related inks.

Assisting me in this endeavor was my ever-more talented fiancé Dawn. You can immediately tell which test sheet is her’s by it being so much easier to see and read.

Pelikan inks were first started by German chemist Carl Hornemann in 1838, making Pelikan one of the oldest and most successful continuously operating ink companies in history. Yet, the company wasn’t really known as Pelikan until chemist Günther Wagner took over the company in 1871 and started using the Pelikan logo. The gemstone-inspired Edelstein inks were first launched with great success in 2011.

Our ink-fast test methodology remains simple. Put one sample in a sunny window for three months and one sample in a dark, cool place and check out the differences.

WOW!

Pelikan regular inks fare badly in three months of UV light. However, No. 5 Aonibi does very well.

None of the Pelikan inks withstood 3 months of UV light from the sun very well at all.  The beautiful Amethyst turned from purple to a faded brown. Blue-grey Tanzanite also turned colors to a faded brownish. My favorite Sapphire almost completely disappeared. So did Jade, Ruby and Topaz. When applied very thickly, Aquamarine, Olivine, Mandarin and Adventurine kinda held out. Only Garnet seemed to survive mostly intact.

Moving on to the standard Pelikan inks, Brilliant Red almost disappeared completely, turning a very faded yellow. Violet and Brilliant Green also lost about 70% to 80% of their color and visibility.

Our two non-Pelikan contestants were No. 5 Aonibi, which is a lovely blue-black when fresh and Organic Studio “N,” which is a stunningly beautiful sheening blue. Although I’ve never heard of No. 5 Aonibi, it held its own quite well in this test. Of the 17 inks sampled, it won the contest of looking the most like it did when it was first put to paper.

Organic Studio “N” could easily win the contest to be my new favorite blue ink, but it inexplicably turned black in the sun. That is way better than fading to near invisibility, but I really wish it held its true color when fresh on paper.

Bic Cristal Inks Get Testing

By on March 19, 2021
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We tested these 8 Bic Cristal pens to see how ballpoint ink holds up to 6 months of sunlight. Blue, Pink, Green, Black, Grass-Stain Green, Purple, Turquoise and Red.

During my last visit with Ink-Fast Donn at the D.C. Pen Show in 2019, he said he was starting to test ballpoint inks to see how well they hold up to UV light.

Last summer, I discovered a collection of the famous and commonly used Bic Cristal ballpoints in my fencing gear. I taught a wonderful group of teens and tweens advanced competition maneuvers and strategy, and to help them remember their lessons and opponents, I insisted they keep “Diaries of Doom” and “Tomes of Terror.” To help personalize it more, I handed out colorful notebooks and pens.

Armed with 8 colors (blue, pink, green, grass-stain green, black, turquoise, purple and red), I created a sample on Rhodia paper and taped it to a sunny window of my home at the end of August. I took it down at the end of February and was surprised by the results.

This photo doesn’t really do full justice to the sample set and proof set. The blue doesn’t look as blue as it does in real life.

Surprise #1 to me was that the black ink faded. With fountain pen inks, you can generally count on black to be the most stable and fade-proof. While it didn’t fade away entirely, it had issues.

Side by side comparisons showcase the effect of 6 months of sunlight on Bic Cristal inks.

Surprise #2: Blue! Blue fountain pen inks fade something fierce under the withering sun. Bic Cristal blue got stronger! It lost some of its blueness and turned blacker, but it held on defiantly under the sun’s gaze.

Surprise #3: Grass-Stain Green didn’t fade as much as I thought it would. It faded a little.

Red and purple faded the most. Green, turquoise and pink faded a little, but survived okay.

Reflecting on this experiment, for some reason, I always assumed oil-based ballpoint inks would be far more permanent than water-based fountain pen inks. Yet, their chemical compositions all have their frailties. Some ballpoint colors react differently than fountain pen inks, but that shouldn’t surprise me as much as it did.