Can I use Brand X ink in a Brand Y pen?
The short and simple answer is “yes”. The urban legend goes like this: “Last year a (pen newbie) friend of mine in DC wanted to get some ink to send to me here in Oklahoma. She went to the Union Station branch of Washington Pen, and was talking to the clerk about inks. He sends her into a panic, telling her not to use Sheaffer inks in a non-Sheaffer pen because they ‘eat up’ the insides of your pens!” This is absolute baloney. As a matter of fact, I personally use Sheaffer and Waterman ink in all of my pens, from Omas to Pelikan, to Montblanc, to… Sheaffer and Waterman! There are, of course, some properties of ink which will tend to stain the inside of a piston-filler or a converter, or might be so heavily pigmented that the feed will tend to clog. There have been discussions about which ink is better or worse for use in a particular pen, which ink tends to be free-flowing, which ink seems to stain, and which ink tends to cause the nib to “hesitate” when writing. Many rumors have bee
