Monteverde Green ink - Review by Phormula
Monteverde Green ink - Review by Phormula
Monteverde Green
I got this ink as a gift from an Italian well-known both online and “brick and mortar” shop in Florence (Italy), upon purchase of a couple of fountain pens. Marco, the owner, knows me very well, knowing that anything that is not blue or blue-black does not fit both my taste and my writing habits and enjoys driving me nuts by dropping exotic colors into the box each time I make a significant purchase. So, when the delivery man rang my bell and I opened the box with my pens and inks, I quickly found the alien, i.e. the “Monteverde Green”. Before sending this ink to the “vibrant colors retirement ranch”, i.e. the closet where my friends and colleagues hunt for the kind of ink that will lead you to instant firing if you use it to write a paycheck rise request letter, I took the opportunity of having to do a thorough review of a lot of printed stuff to give it a try and surprise Marco with a review. In order to turn him crazy I have decided to write it in my “good ‘ol broken English”, rather than the usual Italian of my reviews, which is what Marco would have expected, given he comes directly from Dante Alighieri’s region, where Italian language was born. This allows me to share it with the international community. Hope you don't take this as advertising. Like most of my writing stuff, there is a story behind it and I just want to share with you. You can always print it and use Monteverde Green to proofread. I am sure you’ll find opportunities to use it.
Let’s start from the beginning. I guess Monteverde is a well known mysterious brand. I cannot speak for the US, but here in Europe over the last five years it found a niche among the “usual names”, as far as fountain pens and fountain pen related stuff is concerned. It is still not the brand that you will find in a department store, among the usual European or European perceived brands such as Lamy, Faber Castell, Parker, Perlikan, Waterman, Online, Schneider to name a few, but fountain pen specialized shops (we still have quite some here) have started to carry Monteverde stuff. A couple of years ago I bought an Invincia in Avenger Yellow and I am really satisfied with it. The oversized black nib is a pleasure to look at it and the writing performance is also very good, I like the shading it gives with some inks. A good daily pen, provided you can live with the stiffness of the nib. I guess that, should he had found himself in shortage of arrows, William Tell could have placed my Invincia in the bow and the pen would have done a perfect job in splitting the apple in half, without the slightest damage to the nib. The only change I made to my Invincia was to swap the cheap “fault guaranteed once the invoice has been paid” converter that came together with the pen with a good quality one. My Invincia is working with the Delta The Journal converter, which is screwed in and gives a nice “piston feeling” to it, like some stickers that do not turn a Fiat Panda into a Porsche but add to the experience anyway.
So far, so good. Then the mystery around the Monteverde brand comes. I have not been able to figure out the origin of the pen. They seem to write “Monteverde USA” wherever possible, to picture themselves as a true American brand, but I still haven’t found a nice “Made in …” that would clarify the origin of what I bought. Surfing the web the most common information I found is that pens are made in China and inks in Europe, precisely in Austria. Perfectly explainable, since I have seen some “Monteverde like” pens on sale online under other brand names and that we have a bunch of companies here in Europe, one of which is in Austria, known for production of good fountain pen inks that are sold under different brands. Whatever it is, the proof is in the pudding, so let’s stop talking and start testing.
The ink came in a green coated card box, which is the same for all Monteverde inks, except for the barcode. The box is roughly 6x6x7 cm (lxdxh). There is a window that unveils the inside brochure. The brochure is specific for the ink color and provides information plus advertising. The swab is printed on one side of the brochure, which is then placed into the box in such a way that the color can be seen through the cut. If you use more than one Monteverde ink, you are advised not to throw away the small brochure but fold it and place it inside the box in such a way that you can see the swab without opening the box. The same ink is available in standard international (both short and long) and Lamy cartridges (sold in a plastic blister). The latter fit Lamy but also most Aurora and Parker pens, helping to compensate the limited color choices of the brand proprietary ink cartridges.
Inside the box is the bottle. It is a huge one, 90 ml of ink are 2-3 times the classic European inkwell. The price, here in Europe, is in line with a premium “middle class” ink, but the latter provides only 50 ml of ink while the Monteverde is almost double that quantity. The price for the cartridges is in line with the one for standard Pelikan or Lamy cartridges. Hence Monteverde inks are on the “write as much as you like and don’t worry about the price” side of the spectrum. I should had called it a “cheap ink”, but I have discovered that the price tag is not a good way to judge an ink and the term “cheap” is often associated with poor quality. For my daily writing I use a good “no frills, no name” Royal Blue that can be bought in German chain stores. For the equivalent of a couple of dollars you get a glass pot or a plastic bag containing 100 standard international cartridges and, if you are the inkwell kind of guy, you can get a 300 ml plastic tank for less than 10 dollars.
As I said, the bottle is very big, but not the best design for an inkwell, definitely. It has a round and flat base 60 mm in diameter and raises to about 65 mm without the cap. The neck opening has a diameter of 26 mm, which is enough to fill even large pens. The flat and large design of the base means that when the ink level goes below 1-1.5 cm from the bottom, it becomes impossible to fill the pen. The round design of the base prevents the inkwell from being placed at an angle to fill the pen with the last milliliters of ink. This leaves two alternatives, either you fill the pen by using your first hand to keep the inkwell folded, the other hand to hold the pen itself and with your third hand you manipulate the filling mechanism, or, if you are not a three hand guy, find some extemporary filling aid, like the usual Staedtler Mars Plastic rubber to be placed under the inkwell to keep it at an angle in relatively stable situation. Given the low price of this ink, if you plan to use it on a regular basis, I recommend investing in a smaller inkwell, like the TWSBI Diamond 50 or an empty Pelikan or Lamy ones. For my pens, I use the Visconti Travelling Ink Pot. I have several of them, one for each ink I have in my rotation, because they are easy to bring around and they exploit gravity to guarantee the complete filling also of pens that do not have an ink window to check. By using a smaller inkwell you get also the extra benefit of storing the remaining of the ink in the usual (not too) cold, dark and dry place and avoid mold and mushrooms growth should a contaminated pen be refilled. Nothing to say about the cap, standard black plastic with grooves to ensure a firm grasp. The inkwell came with a tamper proof tamper seal.
Performances
Monteverde claims that their inks contain a special additive, called ITF (Ink Treatment Formula), that should improve everything, from lubrication to dry time (shorter on paper but longer when the pen is left uncapped… perplexity). Needless to say, I am quite skeptical like I was when I started to use the Blue-Black from the same brand. After a few months of daily use, what I can say is that Monteverde Green is a well behaved ink, but ITF seems not to be the end of fountain pen as we know it.
I filled a Visconti Travel Ink Pot with the Monteverde and used it to fill a TWSBI Diamond 580 with a medium nib. Then I used the pen to proofread, annotate and mark printed stuff. This is a critical job for a fountain pen/ink combination, as the pen is intermittently used and it is left uncapped for long periods of time. I also used it to write the draft of an article I am writing for a magazine, in order to assess the performance on a long, uninterrupted, writing session.
Lubrication and flow
Both not exceptional but well above average. The TWSBI delivers a wet, rich line and the nib flows on paper. It does not turn a dry writer into a firehose neither it fixes a scratchy nib, but it provides some help with both. Similar to the Blue-Black from the same brand, the ink gives a “watery” feeling when writing. It is a sensation that is difficult to describe. Apart from placing a colored line on paper, the feeling to the hand is like the pen was filled with distilled water that flows from the nib to the paper without resistance. I do not get the feeling of consistency that I get with other inks. It could be the mysterious ITF additive doing its job, I don’t know. I did not experience skipping, even on very smooth paper, and I always had prompt starts, either after the pen was kept uncapped for a few minutes or after some days with the pen stored in horizontal position. There were no significant flow variations even after a couple hours of non-stop writing, leaving me with the conclusion that the ink properly “wets” the feeding of the TWSBI. The only situation where I had to draw some circles to start the pen was when I left in vertical position (caps up) for a couple of weeks. I cannot say if it is the ITF doing miracles here, or if Monteverde Green is just a well behaved ink, I just wish more inks were like this.
Chromatic appearance
It is a medium green, the color most people would think of when imagining a green as the result of mixing blue with yellow, as we were taught in school. The color swatch on the brochure is quite representative, maybe a little on the yellow side. I cannot make comparisons, being no expert in greens. Since I am essentially a blue-black guy, my interest in greens is more or less the one that a young boy might have for the plot of a hardcore movie. My reason for using this ink is related to the need to proofread and review a large amount of printed matter and for that purpose any vivid color was basically OK. Guess some people, I am speaking of the “color freaks” ones, might find this shade of green rather boring, as it is just an utilitarian, no sparks no frills, middle of the road green. More or less the same feeling we Europeans have for the ‘ol good Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue, which is so common and widely used also in schools that you can buy a 6-cartridges box in almost every stationery store for 1-2 dollars. If you are looking for a “Camellia sinensis leaves under a rainstorm in Ceylon green”, maybe with this medium green you are a little bit off track.
Immediately after writing the color is more vivid and looks more like an emerald green. The change to the final color is quite immediate, visible as the ink dries on paper. Saturation is on the medium-low side. This results in a very pleasant shading with the medium-high flow of the TWSBI, but can turn towards dullness in a dry writer. Usually non-saturated inks have what I call the “startup darkness”, meaning that when a pen is not used for a few days or it is left uncapped for more than a couple of minutes, the ink starts drying in the feeder, becoming more concentrated and hence more saturated. With some inks this is quite annoying when writing, for example, a letter, because the first line is very dark and saturated and the ink becomes progressively paler and lighter word by word, reaching its standard shade after half a page or so. The final result is sometimes like the first lines had been written with a completely different ink. Herbin Bleu Nuit, Graf von Faber Castell Cobalt Blue or Diamine Presidential Blue are inks where this phenomenon is very evident and sometimes annoying. I was expecting the same with Monteverde Green and to my surprise the effect is very low, the extra saturation when starting is very low and the ink acquires its standard shade within a couple of lines maximum, even after if the pen is started after several days of non-use.
Feathering/Bleed through
Monteverde Green tends to feather a little on cheap paper. As I said before, the ink provides this watery feeling when writing and seems to wet the paper more than other inks, being absorbed through the fibers. Luckily the phenomenon can be controlled, I had not that much of a problem with the TWSBI while making notes on printed pages on the standard office copy paper. Neither I had bleed through issues, given also the not so much saturation of the ink. Definitely a good ink, that can be used in a variety of pen and paper combinations, provided you like the color. The only one exception are, as usual wet writers on cheap paper, which call for a dry ink.
Water resistance/Drying
Monteverde Green is a dye based ink (not irongall) and it is not declared as permanent. I did my usual test on Clairefontaine 90 g/m^2 paper, which it is known for being very smooth. As it can be seen, once dried, it is completely washed out by pouring water on it. Looking closely, it can be seen that the green shade is obtained by mixing a yellow and blue component. Actually, by doing the usual “poor man ink chromatographic test”, the two components can be separated. All in all, the ink may survive accidental contact with moisture, such as sweaty fingers, but if you have an argument with your lover and by revenge you throw the love letters box into the local river, if you change your mind and run to save the box before it sinks its precious content may be lost forever.
The TWSBI Diamond 580 is a demonstrator pen. After several months of use, I decided to clean it and move to a different ink for the same job. Cleaning the pen was no issue at all, it took the usual nib flushing and cycling of the ink tank with water until it comes out clean. All was done in 5 minutes with no need to disassemble the pen. The ink went away without leaving traces on the transparent plastic. The same I could say for the Visconti Travel Ink Pot. Both are ready for a new ink.