Private Reserve Ink is a small ink manufacturer based out of Indiana and founded by fellow fountain pen collectors. Private Reserve boasts a large color spectrum, with over 53 regular collection colors and occasionally release special limited edition inks, such as DC SuperShow Blue. Additionally they make refills for ballpoints, rollerballs, and stamp pads.
One popular Private Reserve (PR) ink is their bright green, known as Spearmint. It is a very cheery and happy “summer” green and can be reminiscent of a “Christmas” green.
All PR inks are available in one of their plain cylindrical bottles. As opposed to Noodler’s long and tall bottles, PR bottles are short and stocky. This helps to prevent the bottle from tipping over when slightly knocked around. The plastic cap is also quite sturdy and doesn’t seem like it will crack anytime soon.
When open, the bottle has a very large and round mouth. The mouth is actually the same size as the bottle, so you can comfortably fit about 5 pens in there at once, if that’s your thing.
I’ve always enjoyed bright greens so this ink was a perfect match for me. This one did not lean too much towards a yellow-green and was bright but still readable.
This review was done completely with a Pilot Parallel 1.5mm on HP 32lb Premium Choice Laser Paper.
This ink is actually very well behaved even on very wet flex pens. I haven’t seen any feathering on decent paper. There is very very very little bleed through, but starts to bleed with a flex pen. There definitely is some show-through, but it is not very noticeable and is not a problem.
This ink definitely is NOT water resistant. The water test was performed by placing drops of water on the grid for 20 seconds then wiped away with a tissue. There was barely any evidence of the lines even being on the page after contact with water. I would not recommend using this ink on anything that should stay permanent, like signatures and addresses.
Private Reserve inks tend to be very reasonably priced. This ink can be found as a 66mL bottle for $11 or in a pack of cartridges at different prices. Cartridges are available as both short and long standard international sizes.
What is your favorite green? Do you prefer lighter ones or darker greens like Noodler’s Zhivago? Let me know down the comments below!