Ink Review: Montblanc Miles Davis Jazz Blue

Montblanc Miles Davis Jazz Blue (30ml bottle for $19) was one of those inks I picked up on a whim after I had one of those “fear of missing out” moments earlier this year. Its still available several months later so I don’t know if its a color that will be discontinued or will be sticking around.  Either way, I find it to be a very unique color and one of the more reasonably priced Montblanc inks in a beautiful bottle. It makes a lovely gift, especially giftable for someone who loves jazz and fountain pens.

This ink comes in my favorite Montblanc bottle. At the San Francisco show, I asked a rep from Montblanc what the story was with all the different bottle shapes. Why did the Shakespeare ink come in the round bottle, the Lucky Orange in the square faceted bottle, and then the stock inks in the long oblong bottles? Turns out, he was new to the company and didn’t know. If anyone has an explanation to the various Montblanc bottles, please let me know. I much prefer the square faceted bottles and the long, stock color bottles. I don’t like the labels on the round bottles. The lettering and designs on them is always sub-par. Back to the review…

The Jazz Blue is a very milky, light blue but remains markably readable. Really. My Esterbrook writing samples don’t show it to its best light but I had Jazz Blue inked up in a Franklin-Christoph Pocket 45 for several weeks and it wrote beautifully. It’s almost as if it has a slightly opaque white quality to it. It’s light blue but doesn’t start light on the paper and darken as it dries like a lot of light inks.

The only other inks I found that were even close in color were from PenBBS but they were not as sky blue. The colors were PenBBS #179 Serenity Blue ($16 for 60ml) and PenBBs #181 Haitian Sea($16 for 60ml). Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-Iro ($20 for 50ml) was more turquoise (more greenish) and didn’t have the powdery quality to the color.

While Montblanc inks continue to be a premium price per milliliter, I do think there is a uniqueness to the color that makes this worth the price. And I do end up humming “Freddie Freeloader” when I use it.