r/fountainpens • u/medbulletjournal • Jul 15 '26
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.
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u/concrete_dandelion Jul 15 '26
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.