Private Reserve - Naples Blue

Why did they call it that?
I don't really know anyone that uses Private Reserve (PR) ink but I managed to obtain some samples a while ago.  The first I tried was spearmint which is a nice bright green but not the focus of this post.  I wanted to try more of the PR inks but did not want to commit to more bottles of ink that could potentially sit on a shelf - what to do?  Buy some PR cartridges and try the inks out!!
I bought assorted blue and purple and started with Naples Blue - the last thing this ink reminds me of is Naples.  Maybe Gulf of Naples might be better or sea around Capri.

​Naples blue has been particularly difficult to photograph for you to get an idea of the colour - the best I can come up with is, its close to Pilots Kon-Peki (apologies if you don't know that ink).
​The following 4 photos give you some idea of the shading and colour change depending on the paper and lighting.

Indoors natural light

Direct sunlight

Indoors natural light

Direct sunlight

The ink dries in an average ink time and flows nicely from my average priced average pen (Monteverde jewelria).
The issue for me still remains why have they called it Naples Blue?  If I was to think of a colour to go with Naples it would be brown.  I have only been there once and it wasn't the greatest of experiences.  There was a civil service strike on the day we arrived and EVERYTHING was shut.  Arriving with no accommodation planned and discovering the information centre and anything to do with tourism was closed was not a great start.  Luckily someone came into the tourist office to pick up some papers and was very kind and sorted accommodation out for us.  The place we stayed was great but the rest of the trip was coloured by being mugged and generally finding the city dirty and closed.  To make up for it we decided after visiting Pompeii we would use the our remaining time in Capri and had such a fabulous time.  It was January and should have been cold and yet Capri and the weather could not have been more perfect.

OK so maybe Naples is not as brown as I remember

But its not Capri and here looking at the water surrounding Capri you get more of an idea of the colour Naples Blue is trying to be.

I quite like PR inks, those I have tried so far are bright and don't seem to fade, they also flow very well in all the pens I have tried.  For some reason they just don't seem to be that popular in this part of the world.  I won't however be buying a bottle of this simply because its too similar to other blues I already have and blue is not my go to colour.
Surprisingly, from the US the ever popular Goulet pens do not carry PR inks.  Other American web sites list it at $AUD14 / $NZD15 for 60 ml (23.3 or 25 cents / ml).   There are many online stores in Australia I haven't had the greatest look but the none of the more popular sites stock PR.  In New Zealand inkt.co.nz sell PR for $19.50 which is $4 more than in the US but without all the postage hassles.  They also sell cartridges and have the PR 4x15ml sampler packs for $NZD24.