I've recently had a dreadful ink experience.

While browsing the shelves of one of the few remaining independent office supply stores where I live, I came across a display rack of Higgins inks. I saw the Higgins "Engrossing" black ink was described as being waterproof, and yet could be used in fountain pens. To quote the ad copy on the box, Higgins Engrossing Waterproof Black Ink is a "Permanent carbon, waterproof formula for dry cleaner marking. Also popular for lettering and music writing. For use in fountain and calligraphic pens. Close cap tightly after use. Dilute with distilled water. Do not mix with other brands of ink."

Here's a lesson in Higgins-speak. "Permanent" means light-fast, but not necessarily waterproof. "Calligraphic pens" mean dip pens. If you're wondering who makes the stuff, Higgins is a member of the happy Sanford family of writing products, which currently includes Parker, Papermate and Waterman. And it's cheap -- where I shop it's $2.95 for a 2 1/2 ounce (73.9ml) bottle.

I impulsively decided to experiment with using this ink. I bought a bottle, carefully wrapped it in two plastic bags (long story, but the short version is I've had a just-purchased bottle of ink leak all over me and my backpack before) and bicycled home with it and some other purchases.

I know the conventional wisdom is that waterproof inks are considered bad for fountain pens. My carefully selected test bed for the Higgins "Engrossing" was a Sheaffer School Pen, medium nib, which I'd gotten from "Big Lots" for 99 cents. I fitted it with a screw-type piston converter, and opened the box.

The black-printed pasteboard box contained a flat sided, translucent plastic bottle with a metal screw cap. For $2.95 you're not going to get fancy molded glass! The ink inside was a dark fluid with a smell not quite like old Waterman. It had a layer of loose sediment at the bottom -- I could feel it when I submerged the pen all the way in. Who knows when this stuff was made, but the copyright date on the box was 1997.

The ink sucked in easily. It was black on the nib, black in the converter's ink chamber, and black on the tissue I used to wipe exterior ink off the pen. I started snailing with it right away.

My first impression is this is a great ink on paper. It's black. It's dark. I dropped a dried writing sample into a glass of soapy water, and two DAYS later it hadn't budged. No smearing, no migrating, no feathering. The ruling on the paper washed out, but not a speck of what I'd written seemed affected. Gel inks, you have competition!

The problem is getting it ON the paper! My cheap fountain pen guinea pig wrote like a champ for two hours or so, as I snailed away. The I capped it and left it at home, in a horizontal position, while I went to the library. When I returned I tried it again, and I did NOT get a happy fountain pen experience. It didn't even want to start until I had force-fed it with ink by advancing the converter piston until the fins ("combs") in the feed flooded.

Even after that desperate measure, writing with it was a trial. Flexing the nib, pressing very firmly, writing slowly and constant supplication to the gods of capillary action are necessary to get it to write. It skips. It is somewhat blobby. It is more of a trial to write with this pen than with a "U.S. Government" Skilcraft ballpoint!

Two weeks into this experiment, the pen with the Higgins Engrossing ink still writes with difficulty. It would probably flow better if I emptied and rinsed it when not using it, but that's too much trouble.

The punch line: With a 99 cent pen and $2.95 ink I have replicated the "limited edition writing experience" some dissatisfied pentracers report.

Even with that trouble, I'll keep using this combination, both for the sake of the experiment and for some special projects I'm contemplating. Even if I decommissioned the pen and cleaned it and vowed never to use Higgins Engrossing in another fountain pen, I would still keep the ink -- I haven't tried it in dip pens of any sort, but it should work very well with them!

I'd like to close by stating not all Higgins inks are bad actors. My current default black ink is Higgins "Eternal," described as a permanent carbon writing ink that is not explicitly waterproof. It's been a great performer in a very runny Lamy Safari, medium nib, that I often use at work. I would not hesitate to suggest Higgins Eternal ink for fountain pen users who are looking for an inexpensive black they can feed to high-flowing italic and stub nibs.