thINKthursday
Montblanc Ultra Black

Montblanc’s Ultra Black is the accompanying ink to their new line of Ultra Black pens. If you haven’t already seen the Montblanc Ultra Black pens, be sure to check them out – they are seriously cool. Speaking of serious, Ultra Black is a Sirius Black ink. The ink comes in Montblanc’s beautiful 30ml squared glass bottle, with a complementing matte black box. This review was done with a Faber-Castell E-Motion F, Conklin Crescent 1.1, and is on Rhodia blank no.18 paper.

thINKthursday Montblanc Ultra Black

Ultra Black is a nice black ink with a hint of violet, giving it a pleasing depth. In a fine nib, the ink was well-behaved and shaded decently, but ultra black weren’t the words that came to my mind. In the 1.1 stub nib, however, Ultra Black lived up to its name. The ink was rich and saturated, putting down a pure black writing experience.

Like most other Montblanc inks, Ultra Black has excellent flow, and moderate to high saturation. The dry times were considerably longer than other inks. In a fine nib it was normal around 15 seconds, but the stub nib took longer than 30 seconds to dry. Water resistance was low, but so was feathering and bleed-through.

I’ve been using Ultra Black for a week now and it is a nice ink for daily use. It is well-behaved on most paper, and has a great depth in broader nibs. However, it doesn’t replace either of my two favorite blacks – Sailor Kiwa-Guro and Aurora Black. It didn’t have the richness of the Aurora, or the water resistance and sheen of the Sailor.

If you’re trying to find the perfect black ink, you should definitely give Ultra Black a try.  It is a limited ink, so test it out before it’s all gone.

As with any ink review, the pen, paper and person doing the writing will influence the way the ink looks. If you’re not sure about a color, try a sample to see if it’s the color for you.

Ink it Up!
Chris

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