Mont Blanc - Royal Blue

​I was given this ink when I bought my first Mont Blanc pen.  I was offered a bottle of any ink I would like and in those days I played it safe so chose this as I thought it would be useful.  I haven’t used it since I got it and then again today.  Royal blue is one of the standard Mont Blanc inks.

The packaging is similar for all the Mont Blanc standard inks.  However, sometime between me being given this ink 3 years ago and today the outer packaging and label have changed.  The Mont Blanc bottles remain very distinctive, a rectangle shaped bottle with a 'bite' out of its base.

My box

My bottle

Mont Blanc website

If you look for images of this ink on line some are of a bright navy others make it look quite pale and washed out. On opening the bottle this is a bright navy blue.

Chromatography was a consistent blue colour with some pink / purple at the edges suggesting there may be some sheen in this ink.

The col-o-ring and Tomoe river swatches revealed a blue that I would call school blue as it reminds me so much of school uniform blue.  However, the surprise was the red sheen, it is not dramatic but it is definitely there.  

col-o-ring

Tomoe river

Tomoe using macro lens

For the writing I used an Opus88 Omar with a medium nib, trying out new pens.  I started with copy paper, then used Rhodia and finally Tomoe river paper.
On copy paper it is just a nice blue ink no shading, no sheen, no feathering but  some show.

On Rhodia again no sheen but there is a little bit of shade coming through.  As expected no feathering and no show through.

Last Tomoe river paper.  Here more shading, still none of the promised  sheen and a lot slower to dry than the previous two papers.

This ink is blue! I was disappointed that the promise of sheen from the swatches etc did not eventuate, I was not expecting a moster sheening ink but something would have made this more interesting.  As with all Mont Blanc inks – they are not cheap but they are very good quality.
Not surprisingly I haven’t reviewed many blue inks, in my collection the only dupe I could find is Taccia ao.

In summary -
Saturation – medium to high
Shading – some of good quality paper
Sheen – on swatches but not seen when writing
Shimmer - no
Flow - good
Nib dry-out - none
Nib creep - none
Start-up – Excellent 
Feathering - no
Drying – the better the quality of paper the slower the drying
Cleaning - good
Water resistance – not great