Ink Review #18

*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.

Overview

The color/properties:

Franklin-Christoph Midnight Emerald is a deep aqua green. It’s a mostly solid color, but there is some light shading. You might notice some soft variations between different intensities of the color, but there’s not a lot of contrast between them. The shading you experience is going to depend a lot on the flow of the pen (which in itself seems to be variable, and we’ll get to that), but I don’t expect there to be any remarkably different results between users.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

Midnight Emerald had a mixed performance. During my tests, I experienced minor feathering on the Leuchtturm paper, as well as minor bleed-through in the Kokuyo notebook. The other paper test pages held up just fine, but overall, I expect that the user’s experience on the more absorbent fountain pen-friendly papers will vary. The dry times mostly fell into the standard range of 10-20 seconds, but I did find that there was a slight degree of inconsistency. Despite this, I generally found the dry times to be lower on the Rhodia, Kokuyo, and Leuchtturm papers (Although the latter pair don’t support the ink as well).

The water resistance is good, although from looking at the sizeable grey patch on the chromatography, I expected that it would be better. Still, the water resistance is passable, leaving light grey shadows behind wherever the water washes the color away that are dark and crisp enough to be readable in the case of an emergency spill.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

Midnight Emerald had mixed performance.  Generally, the ink performed well. I didn’t experience any hard starts, skips, or stops during my tests. The problem was the flow — it was highly inconsistent. I initially experienced a medium flow in the finer nibs, but the broad nib had a notably wetter flow. Both the stub and architect nibs had an overly dry flow. Excluding the stub and architect nibs, the ink felt well-lubricated, and the writing experience was usually excellent. Cleaning was painless, and the water ran clear with a single flush.

• Performance in a pen: 6.5/10

• Performance on paper: 6.5/10

• Color saturation: 7/10

• Sheening: 0/10

• Shading: 5/10

• Dry time: 7.5/10

• Water resistance: 6/10

• Ease of cleaning: 9/10

• Shimmer: None

My personal thoughts…

I’ll admit that I feel a little bit disappointed with the results I got. After purchasing this ink at the Franklin-Christoph booth, I was met with a lot of excitement from the others that I was with about Midnight Emerald. I wasn’t surprised — that was me too. It’s a very appealing color. It just sounds like it’s going to be good. And to be fair, the color isn’t even the problem.

If you want to enjoy Midnight Emerald, you certainly can — and there’s a strong possibility that it will be just fine. It’s a nice color. But I hate to recommend something when I know there can be so much variability in the experience.

Color comparisons:

More images/info:

Tools and materials used in the writing samples:

• A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.

• A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad

• A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook

• A Midori MD A5 Notebook

• A 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook

• A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook

• A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook