Why is this the most popular ink brand in Vietnam | Queen’s Classics Review

There are many wonderful ink brands around the world, however there is one that is mostly known by many generations of vietnamese grade schoolers since the 90s until this very day. The sight of these bottles brings nostalgia and fond memories of us sitting in class for the first times. In this review, we are going to look at the new generations of Queen’s fountain pen ink line up and see if they have a chance to compete in the global market.

Disclaimer: This review is sponsored by Queen, and they have provided me with these products for review purposes; however, they do not have control over my personal opinion on the products and all materials, comments and photos are taken by yours truly.

Purple

The color of their classic purple has a bit of a backstory behind them, and it’s not your typical violet hue you usually see from ink makers from Japan, or the rich, deep shade - almost black at times from the west.

The legend goes like this: after the Vietnam war ended and the country was trying to recuperate, there were not too many, if not any, ink makers staying around and the only kind of inked pens we got were left overs from US and Japanese troops. Supplies were scarce and people were struggling to make a living, so the primary means of communications were reverted back to handwritten and typewritten snail-mails. It was cool to look at these again in the current day and age, but life was hard nonetheless.

There had not been any formal ink manufacturers available back then, and inks were brewed from homemade remedies and backyard scientists in chemical markets in the chinese-vietnamese area of Saigon, stored in metal containers in unpredictable environments and sold in liter cans to school children who took their re-purposed milk cans to buy a couple dozen drops to take to school. As a result, the inks developed mold and rust from being in contact with the metal containers, as well as the cheapest and easiest colors to make were green and purple, they reacted to the rust and created this sort of orangey pale pinkish hue of purple we see here today.

The man who started Queen was frustrated at the situation, so he started making his own inks, selling them to stationers across Saigon and the rest was history.

Many years have gone by but the old rusty colors have been so ingrained into the consciousness of vietnamese consumers, and they decided to stick with the colors. These Queen ink bottles have been coincided with the sights of chinese duplicates of the Parker pens i.e. Parker 51 dupes - Hero 331 336 etc… The topic of ethics of duplicate pens should be put aside as these were all that we had back then, and because of them, I am here writing these lines for you to read. I didn’t like the inks and pens back then, but looking back I am especially thankful.

Quick rant done, now let’s look at the purple - it is a lighter ink so it would work pretty well with wet nibs and especially for daily writing, it is a more interesting color compare to the usual blues and blacks we see everyday. It’s bright yet also legible, which is always a plus in my book.

Purple on Sakae Tomoe River

Purple on AWG Notebook

Red

Next, let’s look at the red - there are plenty of other bright and saturated reds out there but in terms of “work” appropriate reds, this one is as close as you can get to an orange-red, kinda like what you get from a ballpoint. I am not sure what to make of the shading as it is fairly consistent throughout the swatch. From EFs to BBs, this one performs consistently as a fineliner or even as a highlighting ink, and it is also a staple of vietnamese school teachers and administrative officers.

Red on Tomoe River

Red and Blue on AWG Notebook

Blue

At first glance at the blue, it gave me that impression it is your typical cliche royal blue that all ink brands make just to fill in their catalog, but when I actually compare the shades of blue between different brands this one has a bit more life to it. You don’t get the faded out blues often found in rollerball refills, but actually a vibrant almost jeans blue with this one. The pooling looks great with any nib sizes and this is really turning into my everyday carry blue.

Blue drawn on Hahnemuhle water color paper

Blue on AWG Notebook

Blue written by an OM Pelikan on 2022 Hobonichi 5-year

Blue on a sample notebook, coming soon ;)

Blue Black

Putting them side by side, the blue and blue black seem a bit tricky to distinguish, as the labeling and shades are pretty similar at a further glance. Typically with the name “blue black” we are going to get a sort of cold grey instead of a darker blue. Queen decided to take a different route, making a blackened blue with lots of depth and shading, especially some red sheen at a few angles with Tomoe River. This one is going to be in my permanent “old-man” collection of ink for sure.

Blue Black on AWG notebook

Blue Black on Life Noble Note

Blue Black swatch on Tomoe River

Black

Finally in the lineup we have the black - for most western and even japanese blacks, what you get is a shade among 50 shades of grey. They don’t quite get there, you know, and you are left to try and make your pen goes a bit wetter to compensate for the diluted grey line you have just made, or switch out to a finer nib to make your lines as thin and as not so noticeable as possible. However, eventhough it is a dye based ink without any permanent pigments included, Queen’s Black is able to create somewhat of a 98% black. Did I mention you have some gold sheen included?

Black swatch on Tomoe River

Black on Hobonichi 5-year

Swatches and words on Wearingeul Jacquere Swatch sheet and a Muji Aluminium F

There are things that I wish they would improve upon in the upcoming years to come to become a globally competitive ink brand, as it is already a niche market within a niche market, thus competition is really strong. The packaging and label design is not really legible or recognizable from far away and the traditional vietnamese texture on the side of the box and bottle sticker makes it hard to read some of the words printed. The sides of the paper boxes also consist of redundant information and could be removed from the design. Finally, I’m not going to sugarcoat it but the shape of the bottle is really similar to Parker’s Quink, and to compete with other brands I believe they should come up with their own signature bottle design to stand out from the crowds.

As a family owned business, Queen is still currently the largest fountain pen ink manufacturer in Vietnam, and it is a pity that I don’t see them around outside of Vietnam. I hope that through this review I may shed a few lights on their products and also to spread words on a really tempting candidate for your daily writing ink.

Would you like to try these colors? Or have you got a chance to use some other colors that are similar to these? Let me know your thoughts :)

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