There are a couple of brands of ink recently that I’ve developed a terrible case of FOMO about and a oddly, Montblanc is one of them. Generally speaking, I am not a big Montblanc pen fan in general because they are too expensive and fussy for me in regards to modern pens and the well for vintage pens is too deep and pricey to get into. But the inks… that’s a well shallow enough for me to play in and many of the colors are lovely and the themes are interesting – historical figures, music, literature and charitable organizations. It’s almost altruistic. So, after a dive into the new Lucky Orange, Golden Yellow and Miles Davis Jazz Blue which I will review soon, I was equally tempted by the UNICEF Turquoise ink.
It’s a limited edition color but it comes in a bottle (almost) twice the size as the regular limited edition colors – a healthy 60ml 50ml quantity rather than the 30ml but the price tag also reflects the larger size, $39 for the bottle. However, as its a UNICEF charitable project for literacy, part of the cost is a donation to UNICEF. The ink comes in a box decorated with letters from alphabets from around the world that coordinates with the Montblanc UNICEF pen as well. (I forgot to take photos of the box but Anderson Pens has images of the box on their site if you’re curious)
I love turquoise inks in general but I was absolutely tickled to discover that the UNICEF turquoise shades and SHEENS like crazy. It’s a beautiful color and made me absolutely giddy. It was well worth the price which as far as I was concerned was my “show ink” since I made poor Lisa Anderson schlep it to Chicago for me. The price of the UNICEF Turquoise is the equivalent of a bottle of Bungbox and I haven’t bought a bottle of that in over a year so I feel like I’m being pretty well-behaved – all things considered.
In my water test, the ink is definitely not water resistant but it will make for some interesting washes if I decide to play with it for drawing. UNICEF Turquoise has such wonderful Caribbean Seas tones!
As you can see, I clearly had lots of other turquoise inks to compare UNICEF Turquoise to in my collection. I threw Robert Oster Fire & Ice in because I knew folks would ask how similar it was. Fire & Ice is definitely more green. Akkerman Treves-Turquoise is probably the closest with Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-Iro bringing up a close second. Waterman Inspired Blue was very similar in hue without quite as much sheening.
Go buy a beautiful ink and support a charity and then know that you can get a regularly stocked color later that is a darn close replacement. See, we’ve got you covered! And when all is said and done, you’ll have a big beautiful Montblanc glass bottle you can fill with your favorite ink once you’ve used up all your UNICEF Turquoise which you’ll do quickly because you saw Leigh Reyes’ photo this week too, right? Don’t hoard your inks because they don’t keep forever!
TOOLS
- Paper: Rhodia Uni-Blank No. 18 with 7mm guide sheet
- Pens: Empire vintage traveling dip nib holder with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Esterbrook #2442 nib in a Shawn Netwon custom nib holder
- Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Cards
- Brush: Silver Black Velvet #6 Round 300S
- Ink: Montblanc UNICEF Turquoise (50ml bottle for $39)
Please consider making your next purchase from one of the shops that support this blog and let them know you heard about them here. Thanks for your support and for supporting the shops that help keep this site running.
That’s a beautiful color! I know you can’t compare every ink to every other similar ink, but I was hoping to see you line it up against Rohrer and Klingner’s Blu Mare, which I adore beyond all reason. From your writing samples it seems the Mont Blanc may be a touch darker than the R&K.
I have Waterman South Sea Blue (now Inspired Blue) and Lamy Pacific.
I had seen the MB UNICEF Turquoise but was scared off by the price. Plus I don’t exactly go through ink at a fast pace.
Is MB UNICEF truly wowza to justify having a third bottle of turquoise ink at that price? Hard to answer but….. Do you know how much of the price is donated to UNICEF?
Anderson Pens blog shows a 3% donation or $1.17 on a $39 bottle of UNICEF Blue.
I guess I’ll have to buy A LOT of bottles.
The UNICEF blue does have a little more sheen than the Lamy Pacific Blue and Waterman Inspired Blue but not enough to validate the price bump. I’d say but the Lamy instead for $10 and donate $3 to UNICEF and you’ll still be coming out way ahead and so will UNICEF.
“It’s a limited edition color but it comes in a bottle twice the size as the regular limited edition colors – a healthy 60ml quantity rather than the 30ml but the price tag also reflects the larger size, $39 for the bottle.”
It is a 50ml bottle, right?
Yes. You’re right. I’ll correct that. (I did manage to get that correct in the footer, just not in the top portion of the review.) The other limited edition Montblanc inks come in dinky 30ml bottles. Compared to their stock inks though, their limited edition inks come comparatively smaller bottles.