Hit the www.FountainPenNetwork.com's forum for "Inky Thoughts" -- you'll see the RANGE of answers to this.
There are a lot of fine inks -- J Herbin, Noodlers, Private Reserve, and others (Parker, Waterman, Aurora, etc)
- Some only do blue, black inks
- Some do some amazing range of colors
- In the ranges (J Herbin, PR) you'll get some common favorites: PR Grey Flannel, Aurora Black, J Herbin Eclat d'Saphir, etc.
There are very few clear winners, that a lot of people tend to identify as a whole -- e.g., Aurora Black is "the" black, some inks are great for shading, some are the best royal blue, Sherwood Green is the writing dark green, Tanazanite is the best purple/blue but is slow to dry, etc.
There are some common perceptions -- e.g.,
- some of the Noodlers inks clog up some folks' pens; and
- Iron Gall inks are just BAD for non-gold (i.e., steel nibs as they eat the metal.
- Ink cartridges don't offer much color range compared to bottled inks
... notice, some true, and some maybe/don't know or "it depends"
Do like I did today -- get a 12-pack of PR Tanzanite, Dakota Red, and Placid Blue are US$6.50 each ... ink a few, and pull up some bottled Quink blue in a clear demonstrator and start scribbling around !!!
-- joe
me? trying to find something different than the Tanzanite I've been using.