What Is Brown? 11Apr14

I use a fountain pen to write in my lab notebooks. It's pretty retro but I never switched to note taking on pad, phone or even PC - though I own all these and use them for different things. It's probably some kind of character flaw. I prefer brown ink, which is also kind of weird I suspect. I've always used Omas Sepia but it has given me issues at times in consistency and runniness. So I went on the hunt for brown ink... I was looking for a pretty dark brown but not so dark as to tend toward dark grey or black. In addition to my Omas Sepia I acquired tsukushi  iroshizuku, Monteverde brown and Noodler's Ink #41 brown. Writing samples on HP bright white printer paper and the ink bottles are shown below. The results are in and I prefer the Tsukushi, which is a high end ink brand from Pilot in Japan. The Noodler's is very dark and my venerable Omas is too light and thin so it bled into the paper. I like the Monteverde too, which is a smidge lighter than the the Tsukushi. I used my limited edition Norman Rockwell Parker Duofold for the test as it is a converter load I could most easily change and clean. Anyway...