Do You Store Your Inks In The Original Boxes Or Without It?

[DilettanteG]

I kept the ink boxes folded flat in a separate plastic tote for years and years. The inks themselves are on floor to ceiling shelves and placed on those little plastic risers in a closed closet in my temperature controlled office. In my recent decluttering purge all but a couple of the most interesting boxes went into the trash. I keep pen boxes, but most ink boxes are just pretty flimsy cardboard.

[frogbaby]

not usually, i keep the bottles in a drawer in an antique desk so they are in the dark ....

[stylophilly]

I find I treat my inks like I treat the dried herbs and spices in my kitchen: stored away from light and heat. Most of my ink bottles are in their boxes, but all are put away in a drawer.

[Eclipse157]

Yes, I keep inks in their boxes if they come with one, otherwise it's into the drawer (or a bigger box) for those who come naked.

[sombrueil]

I have a small glass fronted wall cabinet (my husband made it for me using an old wooden divided-light window for the front). It is never in direct sunlight. I toss the boxes once I am sure I am going to keep the ink and not pass it on. In the case of Diamine, which has a tiny pasted label on top of the bottle lid, I make my own calligraphic labels for the fronts. Most others manage to list the color on the front of the bottle.

 

I only have around a dozen inks at any one time anyway. Most of the cabinet is taken up with Ukrainian psanky easter eggs (a family Lenten pastime of long standing).

[pajaro]

Sometimes I keep them in the box, sometimes not. Additionally, I keep all of them in plastic tubs and cool and dark. The tubs contain leakage. It's a bit inconvenient keeping the ink in tubs, but probably safer.

[SashK]

If they came with a box, then yes. Others like Rohrer & Klingner or F-C just go in the drawer.

[Inkyways]

I also believe it is very healthy to keep all ink in the boxes as they protect from the UV light from the sunlight.

Lot of things will be not safe to be exposed to the sun light. They change colour and of course the chemical components in he the inks are affecting.

Better to keep them away from heat or continous exposing to day light.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Cjayant

[ParramattaPaul]

I keep them in the boxes simply because I like the boxes.

[Paul-in-SF]

I don't keep the boxes, I keep the bottles in drawers which should be enough protection from UV rays.

 

One thing that irritates me is when the color name only appears on the box and not on the bottle. It doesn't happen often, but I know Sailor Shikiori is one that does that.

[amberleadavis]

I kept the ink boxes folded flat in a separate plastic tote for years and years. The inks themselves are on floor to ceiling shelves and placed on those little plastic risers in a closed closet in my temperature controlled office. In my recent decluttering purge all but a couple of the most interesting boxes went into the trash. I keep pen boxes, but most ink boxes are just pretty flimsy cardboard.

 

I would love to see pictures, at this point, I know you have an amazing collection.

[A Smug Dill]

One thing that irritates me is when the color name only appears on the box and not on the bottle. It doesn't happen often, but I know Sailor Shikiori is one that does that.

 

In fact, the actual names of the inks are on the bottle labels. I'm afraid you're inadvertently conflating, "I cannot read either kanji or hiragana," with, "the color name only appears on the box and not on the bottle." The little coloured sticker on the box shows the romaji representation (i.e. in Latin characters) of, for example, 夜長; "yonaga" is how one'd both transliterate and pronounce the name of the ink.

 

I think that's a concession Sailor has made, post-production in the factory, to accommodate both retail personnel as well as consumers in/from foreign markets who would have the need to recognise and handle the retail packages in the warehouse or on the shop floor.

 

On the bottle label, the name of the ink is still there, but the reading aid provided is furigana and not romaji; so indeed we're getting the exact same product as Japanese domestic customers would be getting, as opposed to, say, Sailor Profit Junior being marketed as the Sailor Compass and packaged with a proprietary Sailor converter with a rotary handle of a matching colour.

 

Maybe it's irritating to be blatantly treated as an afterthought instead of the primary audience whose preferences and limitations are catered to by default, even though it's just a (perhaps unwise) business decision and not at all personal.

 

 

[Linger]

I keep all bottles in a drawer and the boxes in a plastic crate in storage in the garage. Works fine, but:

 

- shikiori bottles need to be labeled due to aforementioned

- caps on the bottles are not labeled, so it is always a search to find what i am looking for

- akkerman big bottles (120ml) are too tall and don't fit the drawer

[A Smug Dill]

I keep all bottles in a drawer and the boxes in a plastic crate in storage in the garage. Works fine, but:

 

- shikiori bottles need to be labeled due to aforementioned

Well, you could either learn to read Japanese (kanji and/or kana), or just peel off one or both of the "coloured dots" name labels on the retail box and use it/them to label your bottles, especially if you aren't intending on keeping the boxes at all.

 

 

- caps on the bottles are not labeled, so it is always a search to find what i am looking for

That is (conceptually) easily remedied to make it a less onerous search effort, once you've made the upfront investment of labelling the bottle caps in some way that is intuitive to you to see and find:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/348936-into-the-blues/page-2?do=findComment&comment=4343307

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/355722-ink-swab-labels-for-bottle-caps/?p=4359398

[Paul-in-SF]

Yes, we are all guilty of unconscious cultural imperialism.

 

It strikes me that, considering the topic of the thread, you could have sufficiently corrected my mistake in one sentence, to wit: "The name of the color is on the bottle, only it is written in Japanese (kanji and furigana) and not in roman letters."

 

Perhaps unconscious cultural imperalism makes you angry, and you show it through prolixity and condescension. In any case, I apologize for my oversight.

 

Note: this post has been edited after consideration, in order to lighten the tone.

Edited September 20, 2020 by Paul-in-SF

[Geslina]

I throw the boxes away, I’ve got enough junk lying around my house.  I’ve thought it might be better to keep boxes if I want to re-sell, but I’m not likely to ever do that, so there is no point.

[Sybarite]

Yep, for me, they have to be boxed.

like wines and perfumes, inks degrade in the light.

[amberleadavis]

[PAKMAN]

I toss my boxes

 

[Paul-in-SF]

14 hours ago, Sybarite said:

inks degrade in the light.

 

That's why I keep mine in drawers, sans boxes. Here is one of the two drawerfuls I have next to my desk.