I got a bottle of Private Reserve "Burgundy Mist" at my local fancy stationer. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. It's really the color of a nice red-wine stain ... burgundy. Duh. I asked the dude and looked at it in the bottle, and mainly I looked at the label on the box in which it comes. So I thought I would be getting a brown-red. Instead it's a purple-red. I don't MIND purple-red, but I WANTED brown-red. So to speak.

So then I got home and zipped over here to FPN and decided I'd hunt around. I found a review, and it says yeah, it's purplish, and yeah, it has that ol' Private Reserve thing going on about how it might be slow-drying or it might disagree with certain pens.

I have to say, it seems fine. Just not ... my taste. Kind of too ... chix-chix-froux-froux. I always use Pelikan black, Parker black, Sheaffer black, Watermans black, Watermans Florida Blue, Parker Blue-Black ... yeah, boring. I wanted to branch out into brown.

I'm going to get a bottle of Waterman's Havana Brown. But I thought I'd ask along here first -- would someone want to trade? It hardly seems worth it, an $8 bottle with $5 shipping and the risk of breakage. I should just go back to the store, right? Maybe ask the guy if he'd take a swap? I've only dipped one pen, and only in the puddle left on the inside of the cap. But I did "significantly" dip it, enough to write about ten lines in a Moleskine. You think he'd take it back?

Oh, I don't know what I want. I'm just rambling on. I have to say, the color on the box is EXTREMELY misleading. It's basically a brown-red (same color as University of Chicago Maroons) while the ink is basically a purple (same color as a merlot wine).

Some folks do try to arrange a trade, a sale, or even just giving away the ink via the Marketplace subforum.

Do you participate in the KCat system ink swapping? Perhaps it would be of interest to enough people that way to get rid of a good bit of it.

I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm not totally excited by all my inks, but I am happy enough with all of them to keep them around.

All I can say is it doesn't hurt to ask. Call up the store and see what they say. If the answer is no, then you can always place a WTT in the Marketplace.

DO you want my bottle of Tulipe Noire?

Or you could mix it with something to brown it down... Mixing is fun!

And then it'd be completely unique to you!

So was it RSVP Stationeers or Scriptura probably Scriptura it would not hurt to ask! and if that fails put a Want to trade up in the Marketplace they usually work!

Kurt

I have both (the Burgundy and the Havana Brown) and I'd say your description is pretty much spot on. I rather like the Burgundy Mist, personally, but that's just me. Alas, I like the havana Brown too, so I think I'll hang on to both.

Right now, I'm thinking I'm not gonna trade it, that's just too much hassle. The shipping expense would be almost as much as the item itself. I'm going to put it in that big ol' pile of "things other people might want" and set it aside for a while. Maybe give it away as a gift some time to some deserving but unknowledgeable soul.

I do have a Clairefontaine A5 lying about that I might bundle with it for trade. Hmm.

Tournevis: you're very kind to offer your Tulipe Noire. I would accept it, except that I don't currently want to go through the difficulties of shipping an ink bottle. What would it be, about $5 to the USPS, plus the padded envelope or the priority mail box, plus the ziplock bag, the worry, etc. ... Thanks again, but not right now. Anyway, Tulipe Noire is closer to the color I don't want than the color I do want anyway.

Gosh who would have thought one little $8 bottle of ink could engender such attention?

No problem! If you change your mind, just PM me!

" I always use Pelikan black, Parker black, Sheaffer black, Watermans black, Watermans Florida Blue, Parker Blue-Black ... yeah, boring. I wanted to branch out into brown." Finalidid

""Branch out into BROWN "".. Now don't go getting TOO WILD on us... this is a conservative bunch of people and taking big steps like from Black to BROWN... with no warning .... might cause people to FAINT....
LOL
I only use black and I am not going to be caught trying any wild colors... might upset my image...

You could put it on ebay. That way you could get some of your money back, and the buyer would pay shipping. I had a bottle of ink that I had for several years and didn't like. I put it on ebay, and somebody liked it. I got most of my money back, and bought something different.

It's like they say, "One man's trash is another man's treasure".

Kind of what I was thinking all along.

Keep the bottle if the store won't take it back. I've found that inks I didn't like upon first use often "grew on me" over time, as I branched into different colors. Purples do this to me. I try them every once and awhile, and they just don't agree. Much of this is the paper I often write on, greenish-tinged Steno paper that really looks ugly with a purple.

But I find myself inking up with them every so often, and I like the way one in particular looks in a journal of mine.

So keep it. The first step to boring black syndrome (BBS) reformation is to try new things. You'll have hits and misses, for sure. But what is a miss now, might become a hit later