Ink Bottle Lavender Purple 105196 – Premium-Quality Refill Ink in Dark Purple for Fountain Pens, Quills, and Calligraphy Pens – 60ml Inkwell

The “permanent blue” is real blue and good looking. The Montblanc Royal Blue is dull and looks like the school blue ballpoint pen color. This permanent blue is water resistant. Flows very well and dries fast. It is a great blue ink. No feathering. It is not bright so it is not burning eye at all. It is formal enough for office or documents. Great balanced in “vivid vs formal” and “dry vs flow”.

Amazing ink that does not dry up and get crusty in your pen. Never buying cheap ink again

Talk about getting what you pay for! In need of blue fountain pen ink I deliberated for a bit, and considered this and two other permanent blue inks. Montblanc Permanent Blue does cost about twice what the other inks I was considering do, but I have had my eye on it for some time, and really the unique bottle shape sold me on getting it (I will never throw away that bottle, no matter what I have in it down the road). Suffice it to say that I am glad I did get this ink, it is excellent. It writes very smoothly, dries reasonably quickly, is subtly shading on the right papers, and shades very slightly on even cheap paper. The hue is just a touch warmer than what I would consider a "pure blue," but it is very close. It doesn't bleed or feather much at all. I compared it to a Platinum Pigment Ink, sepia tone, and to a Noodler's Bulletproof Black. Both of these other two inks appeared to feather and bleed through the page more so than the Montblanc Permanent Blue; albeit none to any considerable degree, and to be fair the Montblanc is also the lightest in value of the three, but in the end it did out perform the others. I almost exclusively use permanent inks and therefore was curious to see just how permanent this one was. Writing and sketching a little, and then leaving it to dry about half an hour I then saturated the page and let it sit in stagnant water. The ink remained entirely legible and there was no appreciable degree of additional bleeding. There was only a slight amount of run when agitated while wet, less so than I have seen in the Noodler's waterproof inks... So this is definitely permanent under wet conditions (I have not tried solvents on this ink). The one place that it does under-perform compared to the Noodler's and Platinum inks is that it can be easily and significantly faded using an eraser, the others are much more permanent in this. This ranks among the best inks that I have used and is worth the price if you want a premium quality ink to write with... and a gorgeous bottle.

Absolutely beautiful black. Easy to refill if you need to, but they are so cheap you really don’t need to. The ink dries quickly and looks great going down. They last a while even though they look small. The plastic also is pretty thick so no worries traveling with it.

I got the Permanent Black. I hate black inks because they are boring to me and are never pure-black. Usually a dark gray that looks like watered-down black. I needed an ink for general work related stuff and decided to give this one a try. As soon as I uncapped the bottle, I knew that this was something different. The consistency is more viscous than your normal non-permanent inks, almost gel-like. The black is blacker than black. There is absolutely no translucency to it at all. I inked up first my Pelikan M800 and started to write with it. I was amazed at the amazing flow of the ink, the absolutely crisp line, and the matte finish once dry. The M800 I have is quite dry, and this ink made it glide effortlessly on the paper. It has an obsidian quality to it, reminds me of laser printer toner. It is completely waterproof. As in, the lines do not even fade in water, windex, bleach, or alcohol. The "top layer" of the line, basically the solid particles, will wash off, but underneath you will have a perfectly black line. Pretty amazing actually. This ink should not be used in "occasional writer" fountain pens that sit in a drawer inked up. This should be used in that daily writer every-occasion pen due to the high solids content. It could potentially leave residue in your pen if left sitting for weeks or months. But I knew this going in. Also, the thicker consistency might make it a good candidate for pointed-pen calligraphy, and will try it once my nibs arrive. In the meantime, it now lives in my MB 146 EF fountain pen, and lays down crisp, consistent, and ultra-black lines. You can't go wrong, and as another reviewer mentioned, I believe this is the new standard by which all black inks should be measured by.

To be perfectly honest I bought this beautiful container for my Noodler's Bulletproof Ink. I am a deeply committed die-hard fan of their product. Mont Blanc has a name that goes back for at least my entire life and I am in my 60's and I do not mean the grand mountain. So I could not help but load one of my trusty Lamy fountain pens up with the Royal Blue ink and put it to the test. I must say that it performs very well. It flows so very smoothly from the tip of my extra-fine nib, in truth, perhaps, near the end maybe a bit smoother than Noodlers which sometimes seems to need a little help with the air bubble near that point. And the Royal Blue color, how I do love that particular shade of blue, glorious, clean, clear, blue, certainly a shade for "royalty." Alas, in the final analysis, while it did withstand a bit of smudging with water, so that anything important would not have been lost, it simply was no match for even a hint of bleach. This puts me in a quandry. I like the ink and the color so much that my initial plan to just dispense the ink down the drain and replace it with my Noodler's has gone out the window and I am probably going to have to find a color I really DO NOT like at all and buy a container of that and be quick about it with no testing silliness to procure a classic vessel for my Noodler's Bulletproof Ink.

Even if I choose a different ink later, I would still pay the higher price for the Mont Blanc bottle. The ink is great, but the bottle design will make sure you can use more of it. Most bottles are round and tall. You must have a certain depth of ink to refill your fountain pen. If your want to get the most of your ink, you need to have a spare bottle at all times. When you can no longer get the ink into your fountain pen, you start using your new bottle but keep the old. when you've refilled your pen a few times, you can pour the remainder of your old bottle into the new. There is always a risk of spillage and drips down the bottle. The Mont Blanc bottle uses a smaller reservoir directly under the cap. When you've used the ink there, put on the lid and tip the bottle toward the lid to refill the reservoir. Even when the pen gets very low, you can refill the reservoir. The structure also gives the bottle a larger base which is more stable and less likely to tip. And this ink works very well with my extra fine nib.

This is my first bottle of Montblanc to try, so this review focuses solely on the Permanent Black. This is my 5th different brand of black ink to own, and it is by far the best. The color is the deepest and darkest pure black. In addition, the flow is excellent and it works as well on cheap paper as it does on Tomoe River, Clairefontaine and the like. The permanence and water resistance is second to none as well. Prior to discovering the Montblanc Permanent Black, the gold standard for me was Noodler's Heart of Darkness. The Permanent Black shares some similar traits to HOD in that it has excellent flow, quick dry time, and presents well on many different types of paper. Where the Permanent Black exceeds HOD is in darkness and depth of color and permanence. Both are excellent black inks, but the Montblanc is a cut above. Here are the 5 black inks I have ranked from 1-5 based on my personal experience if it is helpful: 1. Montblanc - Permanent Black 2. Noodler's - Heart of Darkness 3. Pilot Iroshizuku - Take-Sumi 4. Pelikan 4001 - Brilliant Black 5. Noodler's - Black, Bulletproof