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.

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.