Noodler's Black Swan in English Roses — 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A deep crimson-burgundy — cool, wine-red, slightly raspberry in the core. Noodler's and most retailers describe it as a burgundy, and a fair number of reviewers report it as brown, brick or terracotta. My swatches sit noticeably redder and cleaner than that: the written line is a dark cherry red with no brown cast, and the olive-brown only appears where the ink pools heavily. 

Shading: Moderate in normal writing, strong where the line opens up. Heavier applications also break toward a dark khaki-olive at the edges, so you get chromatic separation as well as tonal shading. The bottle label calls it a shading ink for the flex nib, and that matches what I see.

Sheen: Yes, but only in heavy pooling — a dull greenish-gold/khaki that bands around the edges of swabs and drops. It isn't visible in ordinary writing.

Shimmer: None.

Flow: Wet.

The interesting bit: Nathan Tardif has said the ink comes from a childhood memory of a British woman visiting the garden — the first British person he ever met — who kept her eyes on the roses and away from the poppies, which brought back what she'd lost in the First World War. The label carries that through: a black swan on an English pond among pink roses, plus a sea serpent enquiring "Darjeeling?" It's the sister ink to Black Swan in Australian Roses, whose original dye was discontinued and whose replacement formula shifted purple — which is partly why this one has kept such a following among red collectors.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.

Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.

I'm a collector and I'm always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.