Montblanc Blue Hour Ink Review

Twilight at Caprock Canyons, Texas

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

Montblanc "Blue Hour" or "Twilight" is "linked to the 'blue hour,' the time when the day turns to night," according to Montblanc's website. The ink comes in a 30ml square glass bottle adorned with the Montblanc emblem on the cap. It is a limited edition ink.

When I first saw a sample of this ink, I couldn't wait to purchase a bottle. It looked lovely with deep blue-green tones, sheen, and shading. I love blue inks, and I expected great things from Montblanc Blue Hour.

But when I inked my first pen with Blue Hour, I was disappointed. The ink didn't have the depth I was expecting. Where was the sheen? Where was the shading? And, worst of all, after I wrote a few pages and the ink dried, it faded to a sort of dusty bluish-green. You can see in the picture below how the ink is deep blue when it's fresh and dusty blue-green when it has dried.

I tried it in several different pens with various nib sizes and grew more disappointed. Broad nibs bring out the shading, but the ink was dry and unsaturated in my finer nibs.

The only way I was able to get sheen from the ink was in droplets. None of my writing samples, even with my super broad, flexible music nib, exhibited any sheen.

Chromatography demonstrates that the ink has blue, green, and yellow tones. I expected it to be more of a blue-black, but it leans more towards teal.

Blue Hour is not a wet, highly-saturated ink. When you do a smear test, it dries quickly. Obviously, the dry times will be longer with broader nibs, but not by much. The ink is not waterproof.

When I first used Blue Hour, I thought it resembled Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo. The two inks look similar, but Tsuki-Yo has more green and the color definitely doesn't fade. Tsuki-Yo also flows better, especially in fine nibs.

I'm glad Blue Hour came in the smaller 30ml bottle, because this is not an ink I will use much. After falling in love with Montblanc Toffee, I genuinely thought this would be a terrific ink. But it is dry; it fades, and it simply fails to impress.

The Pilot Explorer, Revisited

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The Pilot Explorer is one of those pens that we've probably all seen if we were of writing age through the 80s and 90s. From what I remember, it was an easy pen to find in the day. Any big box retailer that sold pens probably had the Explorer on the shelf, and probably also sold it in boxes of a dozen if that's the kind of thing they were into.

But today, alas, the Explorer is a dying breed. These pens are seriously difficult to come by. Unless you have a personal stash, know someone with a personal stash, or come across some at an auction or random store, you're pretty much out of luck. From what I've seen, there aren't any retailers that knowingly stock this pen.

That being said, why does it matter? Why should a discontinued pen be something we talk about? Well, it's a unique, quirky design for a pen, but it's also one heck of a writer. Yes, there are many, many pens that can out-perform, out-class, and appeal to larger groups, but this is acknowledging something that was a great product that vanished for unknown reasons. We're reliving the glory days, man! "I lived through the Explorer era — you know, before they were famous and celebrated." If that's you, you know exactly what we're talking about.

More importantly, this is one of those pens that excelled over the standard offerings in the retail stores at the time. This is pre-Signo 207, and I'm pretty sure pre-Pilot Precise days, so you can imagine what else you had to choose from at the stores. That's right — Bics and PaperMates. Ick.

Anyway, by today's standards, this pen doesn't win any awards, but it's still a well-performing pen that can keep up with the best of the retail offerings out there today.

Look and feel

This is probably the category that will polarize the most people. Two things: it has a grip style built into the body, so if you use a "non-standard" grip, it might be uncomfortable or unusable for you. Second, it has a unique look that people either love or dislike. I kind of lean toward the dislike fence, but view it more as an ugly duckling. This bad boy paved the way for other well-functioning but better looking pens.

The pen is fairly light, which makes it comfortable to use. Lucky for me, I use a fairly standard grip when writing, so this feels right at home. One thing I've noticed with this pen and refill is that you have to use a light touch when writing. If you start pressing down at all, it will dig into the page and get scratchy really quickly.

The knock has a really nice click sound when you click it down or release it with the integrated clip. For being a pretty cheap pen in the day, it's built really well. I don't know if they're refillable, but I'd feel pretty safe guessing that they're not. I'm sure some people could figure out a way to refill them, but it's not easy. I mean, Pilot put the pen together at some point, so it's only logical that you could take it apart without destroying it.

Writing

Like I said before, and like you can see in the pictures, this pen has a suggested grip for writing. If you use that grip, then that's great. If you don't, well...let's hope you can work around it. Just like Lamy, the Pilot Explorer is pretty opinionated on the grip topic. Once you get past that, you realize that this pen writes really well. The ink flow is great, but not too wet, and the lines are dark yet crisp. On different papers, I haven't noticed much (if any) feathering or show through.

The blue in this pen is extremely dark for a stock blue. It looks more like a blue-black to my eyes. The writing experience with this pen reminds me of using a Pilot Precise V5, which is a very good thing.

Conclusion

The Pilot Explorer is a fine pen. It writes really well, and it feels good in my hand. If I could buy these off the shelf today, they'd be high in my list of "best pens you can buy from big box retailers." Instead, it's now a treasure item that people stumble upon in random places, which has its own merits and rewards.

Growing up, it wasn't uncommon to find these pens lying around in a parking lot, at the bottom of a locker, or attached to a clipboard that someone gave you to fill out insurance paperwork at an office. It was ubiquitous. And then, for some unknown reason, Pilot decided enough was enough. It was an unwise decision, and one I hope they rectify at some point in the future. Great pen, great refill.

Lamy Safari 2015 Neon Lime Special Edition Giveaway

My good friends at Goldspot Pens are offering up a new Neon Green Lamy Safari with a Medium nib to one lucky reader of The Pen Addict. I'm a big Safari fan, and get an unbelievable amount of enjoyment every time I ink one of mine up. Here is how to get one of your own:

1. Leave one comment on this post anytime between now, and Friday night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. You are limited to one entry. This contest is open to US and International readers.

2. For this contest, I will pick one winner at random from the comments section of this post. The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on. The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the number of the winner.

3. The contest winner will be posted on Saturday, August 8th. The winner will have one week to email me via the Contact link at the top of the page.

Thanks and good luck!