I think it's really more about the concentration of colorants in the glass and the way those colorants combine to produce different colors. And I do not think MK makes a true black, even today. AFAIK, only Christensen, Peltier, Akro and some old Alleys can show a true black. You can often tell that colors are not true black by looking closely at the edges of the striping where color thins out or mixes with the adjacent glass. But this too depends on the chemistry of the glass and whether or not the adjacent colors of glass are miscible. CAC is famous for using different colors of glass that do not mix together. It's why CACs usually have very nice crisp borders between adjacent colors and very little bleeding.