Graf von Faber-Castell Carbon Black is a water-resistant dye ink that is black with low shading and gold sheen.
Their web site and product listings say it is a dye ink, and it behaves like a dye ink, but usually water-resistant inks are pigment inks, so it’s probably a good idea to treat it like a pigment ink. That said, I’ve never had any issues using it in pens or cleaning it after.
Scans
In the scans it’s a well-saturated black. There is a little shading on Iroful and MD, but it’s only slightly lighter.
Photos
The sheen is heavy on all the large swatches.
It’s in all the writing as well, but it’s not as noticeable on MD and Col-o-ring as it appears to cover all of the writing evenly. On Iroful the sheen is spotty but also shinier.
Microscope
Under the microscope there is still gold everywhere on all the papers.
Chromatography
The chromatography starts with a heavy black line that fades into gray, blue, then purple, then a large empty area and a thin gold line.
That sort of heavy black line seems to be a decent indicator of water-resistance.
there is a wide glowing strip of blue where the gold line was, but there wasn’t any noticeable glow in the swatches.
Verdict
I have been using this as my main black ink for years and it’s been solid. As I mentioned in the opening, I haven’t had any issues cleaning it out of pens, even pens that dried out over time.
I haven’t methodically tested the water-resistance, but I’ve run it under water before and it stuck around well.
The gold sheen is all over these swatches, but in practice I haven’t noticed it that much on most paper.
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