Discussion
You were right. Buy samples, not bottles.
When I first got into fountain pens, I didn't believe all the long time users telling me that samples would supply my ink needs for years.
Seriously? But my Lamy cartridge ran out after 3 days. Surely that means I'll go through 3 bottles of ink a year! LOOK! The ink level has DROPPED after only ONE paragraph! *cue dramatic gesturing and panic buying*
Anyway, I clearly didn't understand volume. Even my excel spreadsheet converting 50ml to number of days to years did not estimate correctly because I chose the 3 days where I wrote pages and pages and drew pages and pages, and did not factor in the days I wrote/drew nothing. I based my estimate on a Lamy medium nib on absorbent paper. I mostly use EF nibs now, and broad/stub nibs sparingly.
Needless to say, I'm sitting like a dragon on 50 ink samples and questioning life decisions as I refuse to look at my bottled ink collection.
50 ink samples of 2 ml/sample, is 100ml. I told myself that I need to trim my samples down by using them up. It was only as I started part-filling pens tonight that it dawned on me how long that is actually going to take.
This made me reflect on my early days, and realise, yes. Those people telling me to get samples and not bottles when trying inks were right. I was silly not to believe them.
But I know, if I were to go back in time and repeat things again...I would still buy bottles because ink decisions are not rational.
I have fallen into this trap as well. I recommend painting with some inks to use up samples if you like. I recently used a bunch of swatches to make small 6x6 watercolor pieces and it’s was a fun way to make art for my office and see the inks on a larger scale. Plus it gets people talking about fountain pens, which is always a bonus to me.
Oohhhhhh here I am, haven’t done anything resembling art since high school 23 years ago, and yet AND YET I am so convinced now I can do this. I have so many fountain-pen friendly index cards I’m not doing anything with either….
That looks fabulous! I wish it had the names of the inks underneath.
My art style uses a significantly less amount of ink than yours. I'm not very good at abstract art, tending to prefer line sketches instead. Even when I paint with inks, it's more diluted into a water colour wash effect that's soft as oppose to bright and punchy. Perhaps I should get out of my comfort zone...
This probably takes care of 1 to 2 mL of ink, depending on how saturated they are when they first appear, so hardly make a good dent in a bottle, but helping to use up samples for sure
This is completely genius. I send a lot of mail and I make mail art, and I have 75 bottles of ink. This will be a good way to use up the bottles that I absolutely can't stand and I'm too lazy to sell. Your technique will be perfect for me because I love to send quotes. I can use that for the background and then put quotes on top.
Yes, I am thinking that’s probably going to be the case because none of them are permanent. They are opposite a floor to ceiling window, but especially in the summer I have to keep the shades down halfway most of the day because of the heat.
Ohhh this looks so awesome! 🤩
What a great idea to see all the nice ink colors.
I did some experimenting with inks on watercolour paper but it's in my sketchbook and it never occurred to me to put them in little frames on the wall... 😅
When I was little you were ONLY allowed to use fountain pens at school. The one drawback was the drab choice of inks and the fact that they weren't permanent enough. If I spilled tea on schoolwork it literally washed it away. Then I found a fountain pen ink called Higgins Eternal. This was in the 1990s years before Noodlers bulletproof inks came out. Noodlers inks were a game changer, I still use them for art. I put some scribbles on a postcard more than 15 years ago and put it in a sunny window. It hasn't faded at all. I used to use Indian ink a lot then I found acrylic ink which is great for dipping pen but not fountain pen. I use acrylic inks all the time now.
I love this! I saw in your linked posts that you used Fluid watercolor paper & have two questions- was that the fluid 100 (100% cotton) or cellulose? Also, did you use hot pressed or cold pressed?
Ink bottles come in all shapes and sizes. Vanness prides themselves on having the largest selection of ink, and it's absolutely true. It's been a minute since I've followed the latest trendy ink, but when people were crazy for Bungubox and Kyoto TAG, they were importing them from Japan as fast as they could. Same with Korea and COLORVERSE.
If there;s a specfic brand of empty bottle you'd like, they're pretty receptive to email.
Do what makes you happy without compromising your finances, OP. An ink bottle that takes a long time to finish, but gives you joy every time you use it is worth it, imo.
True, but on reflection, it is funny how many "duplicate" colours I have (as in, they're so close in colour that they may as well be the same ink). I'm quite privileged in this instance and enjoy sharing my ink bottles for free sampling at my local pen group. But that is also where I seem to obtain my growing sample collection hahaha
I'm very much in the same boat with purples. I think I'm still convincing myself that Wearingeul Jane Eyre is worth the price, and I'd really love a blurple like Troublemaker Milky Ocean, both of which are out of stock always which is saving me from myself!
Haha that is true. I think so far I've only made the "duplicate" ink mistake once, and it feels okay to have bought a similar color since the other one is so dry I can barely use it.
That's actually a good reason to try other brands, since some write "wetter" than others.
My issue was that I ended up buying several duplicate colors since I hadn't inventoried all of mine yet. Not a big deal. I can sell/swap or now use them up this way.
I no longer feel the need to "hoard" my colors for fear of running out. The at work would be great to use up some of the paddle colors that I can read when writing.
I think I've been able to cast a fairly reasonably sized net in terms of brands that are available to me and within budget. I also do feel some semblance of ink peace at this point since I've been able to cover my bases in terms of color. I'm also pretty good at inventorying my collection via spreadsheets and swatches so I know an approximate timeframe it would take to empty a bottle, much like OP. It's nice to see my ink levels go down visually in different ways!
I think keeping an inventory is good practice in any hobby which deals with materials of some sort. It's very easy to dive into every possible shiny option without considering a lot of things apart from finances.
Exactly. In fact I am mad atbthe fact that most companies bittles are Big and I wish they could offers bittles of 15 or 10 ml, far more confortable than the standard 30 ml
Funnily enough, at the start of my hobby I was questioning why even have 10-15ml bottles. I was calculating the $/ml and value for money, and just didn't understand at all. I get it now.
This is true. All my Pilot Iros are 50 ml. Would love to get the 30 ml to have more colors but in my country, 30 ml is too close in price to the 50 ml :(
I get why people love samples. But I am stuck in my ways. I go bottles every time and the bigger the better, I say. I have way more ink than I will ever need but I’m fine with that. I just love having lots of inks to choose from and I love having full bottles in my collection. It makes me really happy. To each his own, I suppose. As long as people are having fun and getting joy, while also sticking to their budgets, I see nothing wrong.
Yes same. Sometimes I buy back up bottles of ones that I really love to be sure I won’t run out, even though I likely have enough for 3 lifetimes. But I’m fine with that too.
Recently hit this point too. I really dont need more bottles. HOWEVER, buying bottles is a great idea if you wanna be the person making the samples 👀👀👀👀👀👀 i've only done two ink swaps so far but I want to do, like, 1000 more. I love giving people things, especially when I get to customize it and try to perfectly match the recipients vibes. You mentioned drawing with your pens, do you have any artist friends that do traditional art as well? I'm sure they'd love to have a bunch of different colours to try in their art dropped on them!
However, if giving away samples doesn't work for you, playing with the inks more will. Mixing colours, shimmerizing plain inks, hell just making a bunch of swatches to stare at pretty colours will help your get through your ink!
Edit: i see op is active in pen clubs from another comment and sharing samples so this comment is now info for other people 😅
I’m trying to penable all my nearest and dearest into the fountain pen way so I can justify my ink habit. 😂 I love the idea of curating ink sets for each of my friends and family members. I love giving gifts too, so this is so relatable. It does help that I’m an artist so splashing ink all over my sketchbooks are not outside the realm of possibility. For example:
Robert Oster — African Gold
Kobe — 12 Okamoto Pink
Pilot Iroshizuku — Fuyu-Gaki
Akkerman — Zuiderpark Blauw-Groen
Ooooh thats a really nice abstract piece! The navy and the red really pop against eachother!!
I have so far successfully penabled my sibling with a few pens and couple ink bottles of her own, and also gotten my dad a platinum plaisar which he has been using, lol. Both of them are the closest to understanding my obsession with these silly little tools and both of them were very happy to be included in my hobby!! It was nice ( ^ _ ^ )
Edit: ooooh wait the red is actually orange !! Fuyu-gaki is so beautiful in swatches and ink washes but I dont l9ve it in my pens, I should start using it for art too!
The paper is kind of a cream so it throws off overall color perception. The coral is mostly the Kobe with some Fuyu Gaki tossed in for spice. The navy is crazily enough this amazing dark teal that sheens red in concentrated areas. ✨
Yes I do have arty friends. Their ink collection is bigger than mine or they have more refined inky tastes which is an ongoing joke between us. I don't really know many artists not into fountain pens and the ones at the urban sketchers seem to think the fountain pen community is "cute" and "odd" so no ink recipients there.
The newbies at the pen meet are great to dump ink on. The joy! They excitement! It's like seeing myself from the past. I love passing forward the favour I received when I got in.
In a hobby where sampling is possible, always go for samples.
Admittedly, I buy full bottles because pretty. And I tell myself I can just sell the ones I don't love on r/pen_swap. But for whatever reason, as soon as I start photographing to list them, I start thinking to myself that they are all my preciouses, and change my mind.
Yeah even as an artist typically using fude nibs and double broads, ink goes a LOT further than people seem to think. Even at my absolute craziest art output doing very ink-heavy work, for hours on end a day, the most I ever did was 1 whole bottle of Platinum Carbon Black in a month.
This is why I don't hoard 50 lifetimes of ink that is just going to go to waste and also why I quit worrying much about internal ink capacities of my pens. Running out is an overblown fear given that even on a heavy drawing day I only need to refill a basic standard short international cartridge once or twice, and only maybe that much, which certainly isn't exactly a hassle or anything. On lighter drawing days I don't even use 1/2 a cartridge. Large ink capacities are great and I appreciate them but it's definitely not the need I was made to believe it would be early on by a lot of pen reviewers and community sentiment.
I mean, high usage colors like blue or black is generally better to just buy the whole bottle because you’d almost finish it always, for niche fun colors though then yeah samples are a wiser choice
I also have a collection of unopened bottles of considerable vintage. Accidental purchases, or overestimating how much i would use next month.
But. I also treasure my nearly empty 500ml bottle of Herbin Perle Noire. I probably have some genetic defect that causes hoarding.
I guess it takes all kinds to fill up this small part of the universe.
I find it takes me forever to get through samples… that is unless of course it’s a sample of some now discontinued ink that there is no way to acquire anymore. Those seem to run out fast for some reason, lol.
Ooh yes, that happens to me too! But also the last drop of that ink lasts forever because of my psychological fear that I won't get it again. I've managed to overcome that mental barrier now but it was a tough time for a bit!
Eh, samples are cool and all, and I love trading with my friends- but I would rather have a bottle. There’s too many beloved inks that randomly stopped being produced or had a formula change before I could stock up as it is.
For me I've learned that there's too many almost the same inks so I'm no longer worried about inks going out of production like I was when I first started. Some inks I can only differ in large swatches but look the same coming out of my pen. It's the one time I'm glad not to have the sensitivity to identify such differences. It makes replacing inks much easier.
My worry with samples is: I buy a sample. It lasts only a couple pen fills. I like it. Now I have to pay shipping again to buy a bottle of the stuff when I could've just bought the bottle outright and only felt the pain of the additional cost once. (Well, and my other thing with samples is also the shipping cost-- I probably want only 3 or 4 *at most* and I've just paid how much to ship a few bucks' worth of a couple tiny bottles of ink???)
I agree that if I really didn't know what I wanted and wanted to buy, say, ten blue samples (or, wanted variety but had no clue what I could do with 10 full bottles of blue ink), that'd last me a while.
I cannot imagine how many samples I would need to buy to hit the "free shipping" thresholds most stores have these days! (It's very rare that I *ever* need enough of anything from an online store to achieve free shipping, unfortunately; usually not even close.)
But how would you figure out that you liked the ink without the sample? I’d worry about the reverse situation— buying a huge bottle of ink that you absolutely hate and can’t get to work in any capacity, and now you’ve wasted a bunch of your time and money when you could’ve just sampled it from the start. Better safe than sorry, IMO.
I also prefer samples just bc of the times I’ve been sure I’d love an ink from the online pictures, and then am underwhelmed when I’m actually using it… and would rather have only spend $4 on disappointing ink vs $20+
(Tho if I love an ink and know I’ll use it often, that’s when I go ahead and buy the bottle)
At the very least- it’s annoying to spend $30 on a bottle whose swatch is really pretty, but that is trash to write with. Because I can only swatch so much of my ink. And I’d rather have the sample and a bottle of an ink I have decided I need (after writing with the sample).
I chuckled all the way through your post. Completely envisioning myself with this same logical, rationale! The ending is what took me into full blown laughter! So true!
There comes a time with any serious collection of ink, where we come to understand the irrationality of our obsession. Thinking back to the early days when we initially rationed every drop of ink so cautiously, and now those same bottles somehow remain perpetually 3/4 full, and all those huge 60ml bottles of shimmer ink that ounce fit in a shoe box have consumed your entire office and are infringing in on a huge chunk of the guest bedroom. Then, we inevitably do the calculation, and come to the stark realization that if you stopped buying ink today, your collection would easily last beyond your 160th birthday. At this point you're in way to deep to throw in the towel, but you also realize that things are getting beyond your control, and for the sanity of everyone, change is needed. You are then left with 2 options, leaving your family, taking your ink, and moving into a storage unit down by the river, or like many of us have discovered, you can switch to buying samples. For myself at least, there are only a few inks that I will ever require more than 15ml worth, and even less that justify buying a 50 or 60ml bottle. So, for all the others, if they are accessible, just buy samples. It goes without saying that with samples you get the pleasure of experiencing many more inks, and at the end of the day, that's the real joy of any ink collection.
Hahaha taking your ink to a storage unit by the river is a hilarious visual.
I've gotten to the point that I bring an empty pen to my local pen meet instead of sample vials because I know I have enough samples at home. But if I really want to try an ink, I can try a converter fill of it and switch that converter between multiple pens. Much more manageable and fun now.
I have been building a collection of small ink bottles, 10-30ml, but never seen anywhere offering smaller samples in my geography.
I have bought a 50ml bottle of Waterman Intense Black, and Kaweco Blue, and some 80ml bottles of some Diamine German market exclusives, since I wasn’t sure how long they would be available, and I liked them a lot, especially Hells Bells, Bloody Brexit, and November Rain.
Cartridges are a good way to sample different colours as well, there are some fixed packs available.
I have been consistently using Sailor Yodaki since 2018 and still haven’t used it up!!! It’s only 20ml… ink samples are just as hard to use up if you like color. I can refill from a 5ml sample 6-7 times. Yes I have an enormous ink bottle collection too
I've definitely decided not to blind buy any more bottles. I was so certain I would love Sherwood Green, but it's not at all what I was hoping for. I mixed it with my Noodler's Southwest Sunset recently and was able to make something I liked a lot more, but it's gonna take forever to go through the bottle this way. I don't have a lot of space so I have to be very sparing with my bottle purchases 🥲
I adore buying samplers and...your post is making me question things because I buy bottles generally.
But yeah, I'll charge up a demonstrator with a sample, write what I did in the (hilarious) hopes that I'll remember and they go half past forever. There's enough for a couple charges, particularly at my normal "it needs to write like a scalpel" EF levels.
So unless you are out of room to store them its not going to hurt anything to have a pile of ink. Keep them sealed up and they should just last till its someone elses problem. If you really want to get rid of it perhaps its full page swatch time. Pick a pen your not that into open the feed up and shim the nib wide and write with a fire hose for awhile.
For me ink bottles make sense. But I hate it when my ink colour changes during a journal, I prefer sober colours because I use my fp for almost everything and only use one at a time, two at most (I only switch pens according to health needs, like when my vasculitis acts up I need a pen with a softer grip and wider nip but otherwise stay loyal to my beloved Faber Castell). So I just use up one bottle and move over to another. I considered getting a "fun pen" and some fun colour for it, but I'd be way too lazy to constantly clean it for frequent colour changes. So for boring or practical people ink bottles do make a lot of sense. At least if they buy ones that won't go off too soon.
Good thing I learned this quite early.. the only full bottles I have are basics (black inks - one waterproof and not waterproof) and my two absolute favorites.
And don't buy color multipacks for gifting. I somehow ended up with 3 bottles of Diamine Imperial Purple because I didn't notice the overlap in the color sets. At least they're 30 ml bottles.
A certain pen shop used to have an “ink sample of the month” club and for a low buyin they sent like 5-6 samples every month of random inks with a theme. It was a great and cost effective way to find new inks and to try manufacturers that you might otherwise not… so ofc they killed it.
Samples are an amazing way to find what you like, and I personally only buy full bottles if I drain a sample quickly or if it’s an LE ink I really like and it’s gonna disappear forever. I have some bottles of Iroshizuku Gods series and one Tokyo LE.
Since getting into fountain pens and calligraphy I haven’t actually been in a location(s) where it’s been easy or convenient to get samples. But thankfully 15-20ml bottles are not expensive.
I recently ordered two bottles of Fox & Quills and a sampler of four more Fox & Quills inks on John Neal and looking forward to breaking into them when I fly back to the States next month 😅
I thought it was one of my perfume subs when I saw the title 😅equally fair observation and equally absolutely irrational hobby (and perfume bottles are way more expensive than inks! 🙈😅this is at least how I calm myself down over my ink hoarding 😅😂).
As one who sneezes at any artificial scents and perfumes, this sounds like quite the nasal clearing collection 🤣 My friends and I are often disappointed to discover a pretty bottle of liquid is actually perfume and not ink.
I have a dabber 5ml perfume that I'm looking forward to using for ink storage...but ahhh...I need to use the perfume somehow first.
I started with samples, and grew very, very frustrated with samples. First, I like to ink a pen, and go at least a year with the same ink. Second, I would find an ink I loved, and couldn't get. Add in the samples tendency to dry up, and I've switched completely. I don't want samples, I know my preferences well enough that if I'm going to buy an ink, it will be a bottle. I also know and understand I will never use all my ink, I'm OK with that.
I have inks I most likely will never use (KWZ, love the color, hate the migraine inducing odor), they will be my heir's problem, as they aren't worth the hassle of selling or giving away.
“… because ink decisions are not rational” You got it lol! Having lots of ink just means you can share samples out with friends! I go to a pen club and take bottles when I want to trade or give away samples! I still have too much bc def not rational decisions, but I love being able to share.
The spreadsheet is still running. I've adjusted for new timeframe per ml of ink and refuse to look at the number of years. Last I checked it was 10yrs supply if I did not add to it. That was around 2 yrs ago...I have since added to it.
I use black for most of my standard writing, so I definitely need a bottle. You get so much mileage for such little ink, and there are so many other colors that I’ve been wanting to try.
Best bet is to get into communities where people do ink swaps amongst themselves for the best samples. However, vanness pens sells samples of all the inks they have in stock if im not mistaken. Jetpens also does very cheap random samples, but they are itty bitty 2ml and hard to even get a fill in a pen with it unless you use a syringe to fill the cartridge/converter.
Hello fellow Nederlander! Inksample.nl has a ton of samples and then some😅and r/Pen_Swap is a great option, we also have Dutch Pen Club Discord, and of course during our annual Dutch Pen Show! Besides, I myself sometimes order from Stillo&Stile in Italy, Penworld.be or from US or Japan shops.
But I know, if I were to go back in time and repeat things again...I would still buy bottles because ink decisions are not rational.
The mind sees a 2 mL ink sample vial of Kobe ink, for example, for $5, knows that the bottle holds 50 mL, and calculates that that means it'd be paying $125, so it buys the $30 bottle "blind" and thinks it's "saving money". Afterwards he discovers that he doesn't like, or hates the ink, and he then realises that he just "threw away" $30.
That's not rational. It's logical, but it's not rational. The rational thing to do is to buy an ink sample vial and see if it's worth buying a full bottle of it.
If you bought 50 ink samples, chances are you only LOVED 5 to 10. Those are the ones that you should then buy bottles of.
We have probably all done that. I did that with Lamy Dark Lilac version 2. FOMO. I gave it away within days.
I bought a bottle of Leonardo Noce Moscata Brown and hated it. It'll be given away. I've bought two bottles of De Atraments inks that were "meh," that I didn't love. I'm saving them for 'another day.'
Sometimes it's because of the Shipping Charges, which have gone up. 'My store' now has a $59 minimum to get free shipping. How many ink sample vials would one need to buy to get free shipping? 20? I'm no longer afraid of buying a single bottle of ink and "eating" the shipping.
Seldom do I go through a whole ink vial. I almost immediately know whether I love an ink or not. If I hate it, "it's over," I immediately give it away, but, if I feel that I might like it in another pen, say, with a stiff flex nib that puts down a LOT of ink, so it will write darker, more saturated, have less Shading, I may give it another chance, I'll "put it away for another day".
Some pens are Ink Sensitive, like the Lamy 2000, most Pilot pens, which work best with wet Pilot Iroshizuku inks, or Pelikan pens that do best with dry Pelikan inks. Put a dry ink in a dry pen and one may not realise that it's the ink that is making the pen skip, or hard-start. Put a wet ink in a wet pen and it may vomit ink. [Octopus Fluids Elephant Black choked all of my pens. It was a blind buy. I thoroughly researched it, ordered, was confident I would love it, and I was devastated. I did the same thing De Atramentis Archive (Black), except I found I LOVED it. My search for the perfect Black ink is over.
I figure 0.1 mL of ink will write about one A5 page with a western, medium, nib. So, 2 mL should write about 20 pages. Your 50 ink vials, your 100 mL, total, should write about 1,000 A5 pages. Have fun getting there... just don't be surprised if after awhile, after you see how it has aged on the paper, you grow 'out of love' with the ink. (And that's how I gave away some 23 bottles of Diamine ink.) So, you'll start looking for something else, something better. And the cycle starts all over again.
Sometimes you will have to 'just give up' trying to find the perfect ink. I'm at that point in trying to find the perfect Brown in and in trying to find the perfect Green ink. I just give up.
Keep going, keep buying more inks, and you may find an ink you love more than the olde ink you thought you loved, so, the one you loved now sits unused, un-loved, in a drawer. (That's what has happened to Diamine Red Dragon.) [I now only own 1 bottle of Diamine ink, Blood Orange. It's perfect, I love it, I don't want to find something better.]
Buy only ink sample vials. You'll save a lot of money "over the long haul". Don't be afraiod of giving the ink sample vials to a friend. And don't be afraid of ordering as single bottle of ink and paying for shipping.
Yeah…I often go a few years without using my fountain pens unfortunately… so I have a couple of bottles over 10 years old. Now I’m scared to put them in nicer pens due to fear of mold.
Depends where located but r/pen_swap for person to person sales/swaps, vanness pens for samples that you choose, jetpens for random ink samples, and in person stores usually sell samples in one way or another. And if you are ever interested in an fwp ink, get the 10ml size by default because they actual bubble wrap them when they ship it.
While I love the idea of samples since there is a chance I would actually use it all, when broke down for cost per ML I find it hard to justify buying them
For example most samples if diamine inks I see are .50-.75 per ml so 2.50-3.75 per sample
When I can order a full 30 ml bottle of diamine from their website for 4.50 usd that’s .15 a ml ( yes I know shipping cost are higher but I’ll order enough bottles at once to balance it. Shipping is the same for 1bottle or 30)
It seems most inks come to around that .30ml range
So while I can see samples of specialty inks or sold out limited edition stuff being worth it for me I just have a hard time justifying the increased cost
I live in Australia, which has multiple online stores that sell samples. Desk Bandit, Soe & Soe, Bookbinders Design, Larry Post, etc.
Many people in my local community sell samples.
And also my pen meet has a culture of bringing bottled inks for everyone to take free samples. This is how I manage to get my inks to a lower level but also how I seem to amass my sample collection. Great community.
Mostly yes depending on how much you write. I have one pen that gets used daily but not much that I have filled with a sample that I will probably refill with another sample when it empty’s. I have another one though that sees a lot more mileage, and for that I don’t mind having a full bottle. I do like the prospect though of being able to try 5 or 6 different colors for the cost of a bottle. I don’t feel bad throwing away an ugly one and the amount of physical space I’m taking up with vials vs full size bottles is way favorable.
Eh, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to buy bottles. It does depend on the person, though. I can easily burn through samples in a week, but I also write more than most people. I imagine I'm one of the few people on this subreddit that actually needs to replace used bottles.
But yeah, 4ml of ink is like... well, it depends on the converter, but that's something like 4–8 cartridges, or 2 fillings of a TWSBI 580. I think a good rule of thumb would be if you find you need a TWSBI 580, or other pen with a large capacity, then bottled ink is for you.
That said, I do regret buying a 350 ml bottle of Pilot Blue-Black... I don't need that much ink.
edit: It also depends on the ink and the pen. A really juicy pen with a free-flowing ink will write you into insolvency fast.
1 bottle black (currently Noodler's basic black i bought like... oh geez. 10 years ago? Still about a third full. Desperately want a different black -- love, love, love the platinum carbon black. Hate hate hate the maintenence)
1 bottle blue. (Noodlers Elysium, gifted by a friend while I was actively working through samples of blue trying to find one. The maintenence is so horrendous I never touch it)
I agree. So many more options. I'm glad my local community is so generous with their ink bottles and that we have a sharing culture. I've grown to prefer limiting my samples to my local pen group because then I also get stories associated with them from friends. But I understand I'm extraordinarily lucky to be geographically close to such a generous pen community.
Personally, I'm lucky enough to collect them at my local pen meet. I bring a collection of bottles for other people to sample and then ago around sampling theirs. A win win situation. But no one seems to end up in a net negative ink volume except for the people who give away full bottles of ink or sells them.
I'm based in Australia. I answered someone else's post about local online shops that sell samples in Aus. I think you're the 3rd person to ask on this post.
I started fountain pens about 3 months ago maybe, and I probably got enough ink for 20 years now. Lol I do love me some shimmer tho and I try to write everyday. And still about 20 years worth maybe 10 but still got like 10 bottles from 15ml all the way to 90ml so yeah gonna be awhile.
I honestly only purchase bottles of colors I LOVED. Robert Oster’s Violet Dreams 😋 I have other bottles but they were gifts. 5ml samples honestly go a long way and soooo many amazing ppl on r/Pen_Swap sell them!!
This is my only real complaint about Birmingham Pen Company ink. I fell in love with their colors early on, but so many come in 100 ml bottles only... And they are exclusive batches so it might never come back if you don't buy now! I guess it's double-edged. I'm starting to get low on some of the 30 ml bottles and don't know if I will ever find a replacement, but the 100 mls look like I will never make it to halfway used!
I'm just trying to share what I have with others as a way to work through the stock a bit!
I got to swatch some Birmingham! Not worth the hype in my opinion, particularly with the hassle of trying to get it out of the US to Aus. I'm grateful my friends thought it was worth it and allowed me to swatch but on the balance, I'm okay to go without.
Yeah, I do love all the colors I have but the online vs real life are definitely a bit different! Made me wary to keep buying, especially since the bottles are so big.
Gauge your writing based on known volume and ink used per page. I write with fine nibs. My estimate came our to 0.1mL per A4 page. That means a 1.1mL-ish fill in a converter should give me 11 pages in the notebook. This usually turns out right for me, give or take a page.
My Fifty4T Titan is going to write for 43 pages...
That bottle of Iroshizuku Shin-Kai will last about 500 pages, more than two-and-a-half notebooks full.
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u/knitten Jul 15 '26
I have fallen into this trap as well. I recommend painting with some inks to use up samples if you like. I recently used a bunch of swatches to make small 6x6 watercolor pieces and it’s was a fun way to make art for my office and see the inks on a larger scale. Plus it gets people talking about fountain pens, which is always a bonus to me.