Hi all:

I was wondering if anyone knew of or had a reciept for a robin's egg blue ink. I'm thinking with Spring now being here and Easter on the way a shade of blue like that might be nice for sending Easter cards.

tom.

Sheaffer Turquoise or Waterman South Seas Blue is pretty close to what I would call Robin's egg blue.

In my copy of Clark's Sampler, Private Reserve Daphne Blue shows no green hue at all to my eyes.

A quick preview of an ink soon to be in the UK....

Three cheers!
Will Britania's (sp?) Blue Waves be exclusive to one retailer in the UK, or just exclusively distributed from the UK?

Open to the two retailers of Noodler's in the UK (if they chose to stock it). NoodlersInk.co.uk and The Writing Desk.

Two weeks or so before any is in stock....but it's coming (some are made in extremely limited numbers due to a shortage of certain rare components, don't expect these to be produced in large quantities...there is no ad budget, labeling is in house, glass is not a custom mold...as much value as is possible is crammed into the ink and nothing else! We will never sell an ink where the packaging and glass costs more than the ink itself. The ink is THE value - the central item and concept to it all).

Nice shade!

Yeah, and beautiful label!

Quite agree on where the value lies. To that end, it looks like you are maybe scanning original artwork and computer generating the label stock in an inkjet printer. Marvelous look to it and it is probably less expensive than having labels made for you. Now watch, that's probably not the way they're made, at all.

Your description of how it will be two weeks before any is in stock leads me to ask, how is your ink made? Do you, personally, and perhaps with helpers, do the mixing, bottling, etc? Or, do you sub the work out and oversee the process? I can't imagine doing it yourself as that would leave little time for working out the formulations, pilot plant level testing, etc. There's only 12-15 work hours in a day.

That's exactly the shade of blue I've been looking for, well done . Will it ever be available here in the U.S. if materials become available?

tom.

Wow! That's a nice looking blue! I might want some of that.

And I think I have that photograph in one of the books I own about old warships. I'm sure that lots of people across the pond are quite familiar with it too.

It's all here...design, labels, getting the glass....getting the clotures (caps)...design of boxes...getting the boxes done (those are stamped and cut on the DelMarVa peninsula to our south)....and the inks are formulated...tested...formulas set...then produced...and NOTHING is done overseas (although the plastic in the caps perhaps is made from imported oil or gas from Canada?)...workdays are not scheduled - they are basically sleep/work/sleep/work....lol....18 to 20 hour workdays are routine and always have been... That is the reality of small business - there is no way around it until the volume can justify the cost of a labeling machine....which I am reluctant to get due to the high cost. The longer high costs can be avoided...the better. You will not see a custom Noodler's Ink glass mold anytime soon...until glass prices fall below ink component costs for a custom mold the glass used will remain as practical as possible. The ink will always be the most costly component of the final product - costing more than all the other components combined. Ink is the product - not flashy and costly packaging.

As for the original artwork (such as that on the Blue Ghost, Luxury Blue, Hunter Green, Electric Color inks, Eel inks, etc...) - those are done on large 2ftX3ft to 3ftX5ft canvas and then photographed in high resolution...then shrunk down to the label sizes. The printer ink on the label is also our ink - though made for electrical pulse charges...not fountain pens (it retails for about $10 per 4.5oz bottle to any retailer willing to carry it - though it is NOT in distribution...so has to be sold direct from the company to the retailer - and note that retail price is less than both Costco and Walmart on a per volume basis for that type of ink). The artist (a friend here in Massachusetts) would like to offer prints at some point in the future to help fund the time needed to make the artwork (some paintings, watercolors, and color pencil drawings take weeks)...if the prints were to do well, then all the labels would soon have original artwork. As it is - only about 1/4 have custom art (involving catfish themes...each original piece ALWAYS has a catfish somewhere on the canvas) due to cost factors. It is not known if there would or would not be a market for limited prints of the artwork...if anyone is interested, just e-mail.

It is the English fleet during WW I just before the Battle of the Jutland - hence, "Britannia's Blue Waves". It was widely familiar during and just after the Great War....though today many people don't remember or even know what the Battle of the Jutland was about or even in which war it happened!

If the market likes it...something will have to be figured out. Right now it is just a handful of sample bottles.

Is there anything wrong with a label that is a custom run....and perhaps can be changed after 15 bottles? If done in-house..the labels can be intense...whereas when subcontracted the volume requirements surge and costs rise as well. A printing house would cost too much....it goes over the line of "keeping the value in the ink and NOT the packaging". It's a 5,000 year old industry with margins so thin they can cut like a razor (just two such bulk "professional" label runs would make the company broke and end the struggle). A label that communicates history without robbing from the value of the ink seems ideal...and can be limited to extremely small numbers unlike the mass produced variety.

Was asking if you might "oversee" the work if it was subbed out, not if anything was made "overseas".

Really appreciate you taking the time to lay this out. I have maintained that between you and PR, with your line of more saturated products and the great colors that result from more dye, the pen industry has reaped a reward to as much an extent as the users who have enjoyed the greater choice.

Hate to see you working your fingers to the bone, but we're grateful for your industry and wish you the best for future success.

Heck no! I'm quite taken with your labels, not arguing against them. Quite the contrary, I read your labels, not merely glance at them as I do other ink labels!

I'll understand that if you become a large, successful force in the ink world, you may someday have to go to manufactured, cookie cutter labels, but I'll look back at today's labels with nostalgia.

Spelling corrected...in Britain there will be "Britannia's Blue Waves" instead of "Britainia's...." Same label...glad you like them! The marketing people claim an ink should have a very conservative label that will never cause any potential customer even the slightest offense... Perhaps if they have a million bottles on store shelves they actually have to worry about that...but not if the ink is sometimes in such limited quantities as to be measured by pints of production vrs. the giant 5,000 gallon vats the large companies have.

Some dye families are so rare they simply can't support high volume production anyway.

I disagree with the marketing people, there is always room in a business for creative labeling and packaging, especially when contains a product that is unique. Keep up what you are doing, I really enjoy using your products.

tom.

I think there would be interest in this Artwork. I suggest a small size 4x6 or thereabouts. that way it is big enough to appreciate but not too expensive and a collector could buy several to group as decoration. Also I would think reproducing the color artwork in a smallish size should be pretty cheap thus allowing the artist to make a nice profit without the cost being too high. I would also do some of these British labels judging by the response here!!