Last week I presented the first group of the new ink line from Private Reserve inks under the Yafa brand. This week I will finish the PR inks that were sent out and just like last week, I have the old versions of each ink save one – Avocado.
This group consists of 7 inks – Daphne Blue, Blue Suede, Avocado, Buttercup, Orange Crush, Copper Burst, and Chocolate.
The new Private Reserve Daphne Blue is a great match for Monteverde Caribbean Blue. A touch of shading with this one but not much of it in writing.
The older version of Daphne Blue was a bit more even in tone – there was less variation in the shading. The new Daphne Blue is a a nearly perfect match.
Blue Suede is the next ink. it’s a bit darker than Noodler’s Turquoise and has some great shading! There was just a tiny touch of sheen in some letters as well.
The new Blue Suede is definitely darker. The color and shading variations here make it tough to compare the underlying color, but they are close. This is another great update.
Avocado is now being spelled correctly! Don’t worry – I know why it was misspelled in the first place. Something about a guitar…
The new Avocado ink is close to Birmingham Schenley Park Thicket Green although considerably darker. Again, there is a bit of sheen on this one. a beautiful black sheen.
Good yellow inks that are legible and still yellow are so hard to find. The original Private Reserve Buttercup was a great ink for this requirement. The new Private Reserve Buttercup is also great – close to the yellow ink from the Pineider Alchemy ink mix kit.
Comparing the new and old Buttercup inks, it is easier to see the change. The new Buttercup ink is darker with a touch of orange. I did see feathering in this ink but I need to test it further on various papers to see how it behaves on those.
The new Private Reserve Orange Crush is beautiful. A dark pumpkin orange with plenty of red mixed in. Orange Crush is close to Robert Oster Orange Zest – another great orange.
This color received quite the update. The old version of Orange Crush was a much lighter orange and was much closer to yellow than red. I’m not sure these two should go by the same name! I will miss the old Orange Crush tone, but the new Orange Crush is definitely one to check out.
Copper Burst is close to Monteverde Canyon Rust – a great color. Copper Burst has a bit less red than Canyon Rustand more extreme shading. There’s a bit of black sheen that shows up in writing, at least in wider nibs.
The color change between the new and old versions of Copper Burst isn’t quite as extreme as the change with Orange Crush. However, these are completely different colors as well. Copper Burst was originally lighter and closer to orange. The new Copper Burst has some dark halo effects in writing and lots of shading.
The final color in this week’s post is Private Reserve Chocolate. I realized my ink smudge looked like I had left a bit of chocolate on the swatch card – I’m sure it was on purpose! Chocolate is darker than Lamy Topaz but similar in color. It has dramatic shading in wide nibs, going from almost black to a milk chocolate shade of brown very quickly.
The new and old Chocolate inks are a fairly good match. Once again, the new ink is darker and the shading more pronounced.
I’ve lined the new Private Reserve inks up on the bottom row and the matching old version on the top. Each ink has more shading and is darker. Buttercup is the ink that stands out in this comparison.
Orange Crush and Copper Burst – these inks I would definitely refer to which generation you are using. These two colors are the biggest change I have seen in Yafa’s change.
Once again I am overall quite happy with the updates to the Private Reserve ink line. Each color is darker and shades more dramatically. Other than the elevated levels of red in Buttercup, Orange Crush, and Copper Burst, the changeover has been quite successful at color matching.
Private Reserve inks have increased slightly in price but are still an amazing deal. Any of the bottles above retail for $15 and are sold in 60mL bottles. That comes in at $0.25/mL, slightly less than the $8 for a 30mL bottle of Diamine.
- Swatch Cards: Col-o-Ring Cards ($10 for 100 cards)
- Inks: Private Reserve (60mL for $15.00)
DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Thank you so much for this. I have to say, I’m glad I still have plenty of the old Orange Crush – I love it’s tone and shading. And with this review, I think I now will need to buy the Copper Burst. I wish my Buttercup were the newer formula. I can’t use it for writing, but purchased near all of my Private Reserve inks back when purchasing through the internet wasn’t what it is now, and I had access to fewer ink brands where I lived. I used Buttercup as the base color in mixing three Private Reserve inks into my favorite super-shading writing color. I don’t need to do that anymore TSA it’s made by other companies in abundance.
I did NOT know why Avocado was misspelled before, and it annoyed this editor to pieces! What a relief!
I hope the PR Blue Suede hasn’t been changed much I have an older bottle & the color match’s perfectly with my TWSBI 580 ALR in prussian blue!
Blue Suede: That’s interesting because my swab of a sample I got ages ago looks identical to the ‘new’ one! I’m thrilled about that it’s one of the few blues I like.
I didn’t realize that with the new owners came new formulas. Now I will have to swab the two I have that are from the new line for comparison
Yep. They moved production and bottling to the same facilities that bottle monteverde inks so the formulas were bound to shift a little.