I decided to pick up the pace of my ink notes and do more of a review this time around. In the past I’d just use the ink normally and collect my impressions once I’ve run it through a couple pens. I’ll be looking at Private Reseve Ebony Brown in this ink note.
I pulled out a Lamy Safari along with extra fine, medium and broad nibs for it. I’ll use my Edison Pearl for the fine nib sample since it’s already loaded up with the ink. I picked the Lamy nibs because I can ink up one pen and swap nibs for testing. Once I had everything in order I poured some bourbon and set out to do some writing.
Pictures of the samples on Rhodia paper are in the pictures, click them for the full size images.
- Page 1 of the samples, EF, F and M nibs.
- Page 2 of the samples, Broad nib and water test.
My impressions of Private Reserve Ebony Brown
- A basic, dark brown. Can look almost black at times, in the right (or wrong?) light.
- Long drying time, at least to the point of not smudging. It took 11 seconds for the extra-fine line to dry and 23 seconds for the fine line, on Rhodia paper.
- No noticeable feathering on any paper I used. This included Rhodia, Doane, and Staples 20lb multi-purpose paper. If I looked closely I could see some feathering with the broad nib on the Staples paper, but I really had to look hard.
- I used the ink extensively in my Edison Pearl with an extra fine nib. It never experienced any hard starts or skips.
- The ink would be suitable as a daily writer for me.
Bottom Line
A well behaved ink that I could use as a daily writer. In my opinion the color is ok but it doesn’t rise to the “must have” level for me. I’ll keep looking at brown inks although I wouldn’t rule out returning to Private Reserve Ebony Brown at a future date.
Pens I Used
The Edison Pearl LEE with an extra fine nib was the pen I used the ink in for my day-to-day testing. There was good flow without any skipping or false starts, I didn’t have any problem reading the thin line. There wasn’t any shading.
Additional Reading
Sandy1 has a review on FPN. They had significantly shorter drying times than I experienced.