Blue and black are the most common inks used for everyday writing and are often required for professional or legal use. As we discovered with black inks however, not all blue inks look alike. In this article, I categorize our more than seventy blue inks into four color categories and pick a few from each category that I like.

Standard Blues and Middle Blue Shades

In my last blog entry I discussed my favorite fountain-pen-friendly notebooks, and how not all papers are created equal. Well, the same line of thought applies to fountain pen inks, especially when looking at the color black. The amount of color variance found among different black inks can be surprising.

Among the different black fountain pen inks available at JetPens, one can find different shades including blue, green, and purple hues. Choosing the right black ink for your needs can be difficult, so to help you out we’ve compiled a comprehensive swatch sheet of our black bottled fountain pen inks.

Note: Each swab is done on Kokuyo Campus High Grade CYO-BO paper using a Brause 361 Steno "Blue Pumpkin" calligraphy dip pen nib and a cotton swab.

Black Bottled Fountain Pen Ink Swabs

Click on individual swatches to view product details

Among our new products released this month, JetPens is excited to introduce the Diamine fountain pen inks!



Diamine fountain pen inks are produced in the United Kingdom, and are available in over 70 different colors!

The history of the company dates back into the 1800's, when it was founded in London as T. Webster and Co. The company changed its name to Diamine in 1964, and has been producing a wide variety of beautiful and high quality inks over the years.



Diamine Inks have been frequently requested at JetPens, and the company is proud to continue their ink making tradition. The fine quality Diamine fountain pen inks are suitable for all brands of pen and are known for not clogging.



In 78 different color choices, how will you decide which Diamine fountain pen inks to try out?

I'm a sucker for well designed packaging. Let's face it, sometimes we can be drawn to a certain product not because of the actual contents, but rather the packaging those contents are found in. That being said, I particularly love some of the bottled inks we carry here at JetPens, solely because of the bottle design. Among those favorites is the Pelikan Edelstein Fountain Pen Ink Collection. These inks come in beautiful chunky glass bottles, and have a color selection inspired by the gem stones they were named after. We tested all seven colors in the following order (from top to bottom of our test page): Ruby Red Mandarin Orange Jade Green Aventurin Green Topaz Blue Sapphire Blue Onyx Black Once our test swabs were dry we submitted them to a water brush test, an alcohol-based Copic Sketch Marker and a gel ink pen. We did all tests on the same page of a Rhodia DotPad Notepad - Black Cover - 5.75" X 8.25" - 80 Sheets - 5 mm Dot Grid, and allowed 10 seconds of drying time before starting. Unfortunately, these inks do not hold up to water and are in no way water-proof or water-resistant. Surprisingly though, the dried ink did not budge when drawn over with our Copic Sketch Marker - Yellow Green. There was no smudging whatsoever and no traces of ink on the felt tip of the marker! The gel pen did not seem to have any effect on the dried ink either. Here is the final test sheet: To sum it up, the Pelikan Edelstein Fountain Pen Ink Collection is not waterproof or water resistant, but does not smudge or bleed when alcohol-based markers or gel ink pens are used over the dried ink. It is also great to know that the ink colors are just as beautiful as the bottles they are presented in!