Blue is a perennial favorite when it comes to color and ink is no exception. With so many shades available from every corner of inkdom, how can you select a simple palette and still enjoy a range of color? Satisfying properties, ease of use and ongoing availability are important, too. Several companies can fill these requirements but Diamine has three colors that work just right for my basic blue palette.
The first three are terrific together and offer a pleasing palette of blue hues. For a swing towards green on the color wheel, Teal is a versatile color that works well for correspondence as well as in the business environment unless you have a stick-in-the-mud boss who restricts ink to black only. No doubt you can imagine what I think of that.
None of these four are super-saturated colors and they work especially well in pens that are fine or extra-fine. All are easy to clean and don’t dry in nibs and feeds when written with at least once a week.
Another plus to Diamine, at least for the ten years I’ve used their ink, is that none of the ones I use have been discontinued. Lots of new colors get released but the older, good ones don’t disappear as a result. That’s loyalty to the consumer that deserves loyalty in return.
While the tall, narrow bottle may not let your Montblanc 149 suck up to it, the 30 ml bottles straight from Diamine are the best deal around. The cost for four bottles + U. S. shipping is around $21 at the current exchange rate. Just decant to your favorite, empty ink container and enjoy it anyway. C’mon. You know you will.
The dynamic Diamine duos in the image are
- Mediterranean Blue + Platinum #3776 music nib
- Royal Blue + Platinum #3776 Century “Chartres Blue” broad nib
- China Blue + Pilot Custom 742 Falcon nib
- Teal + Sailor Sapporo fine nib
Note that the scan isn’t bad but China Blue and Teal are a bit darker than pictured and Royal Blue is a bit paler. Mediterranean Blue looks just right.
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