Chinese Inks

[PatientType]

One thing I noticed having used a wide variety of inks is that the Peacock, DUX, and Hero inks can be very inexpensive but quite usable. Buying them in China, I was paying $1.50 to $2.00 USD per bottle. Shopping for fountain pen ink in China the color choices I saw were limited to black, blue, blue-black, and red. I've never seen green, purple, or pink other colors on sale there that wouldn't be usable for school and business purposes.

The Chinese inks I've used tend to be dry-writing and permanent. What struck me about that was that when I purchased a bottle of made in the USA permanent Noodler's blue/black ink in New York City a few year's ago the price was $12.00 for a 1 oz bottle - permanent ink in other brands were priced higher. When I purchased a 50 ml (1.7 oz) bottle of Chinese brand DUX blue/black permanent ink, the cost was only $1.78. That was in China but one can purchase Chinese inks on Ebay for about $4.25 USD. That's still only about one third the cost of other permanent inks.

Should members have the opportunity to visit China, you may want to bring back a supply of fountain pen ink. Pen ink is much more widely available there than in the USA. Also, take a chance on a bottle of Hero ink on Ebay. You may be pleasantly surprised by the quality.

[OCArt]

I agree that Chinese inks can be very good. I regularly use Hero 232 blue-black which is a very well-behaved iron gall ink. I recently purchased a bottle of Picasso Blue ink and it is a lovely saturated sapphire color. The bottle is very similar to the one used by Parker Penman inks and has the similar insert that fills when tipped.

[amberleadavis]

We would love see reviews!

[old4570]

I use Hero 233 , and seems like a very nice ink .

Also today - I finally got some Sheaffer and while I was at it Waterman .

Not much in the way of ink anywhere near me that can be purchased in a physical store . ( All there is is Parker Quink )

Dont get me wrong , Parker Quink seems like a nice ink .

Edited May 30, 2018 by old4570

[gerigo]

While there are the historic super cheap inks associated with legacy brands, there are LOTS of interesting inks by small groups coming out from China, the most famous being the Pen BBS China fountain pen group inks. They have been releasing their own inks for quite a while now and have very interesting colors.

[lapis]

I love my 232 and recommend it all the time. It (60 ml) came in at about $4.50 (I think) including shipping.

[majorworks]

I just filled an Indian ED pen today with Hero 234 black. It's an ink that's given me some trouble in the past with clogging, but I hadn't used it in a very long while so I thought I'd give it a try. We shall see.

 

It's a bit of a dry ink; I think it's supposed to have some sort of micro-carbon bits in it or something. It's a really black black, if you know what I mean.

[Dip n Scratch]

I don't quite know if it is my eyesight or dot...

But does the Hero 234 look like it is brown-ish when fresh? Compared to Herbin Pearl Noire it does.

One month on the window sill and the Herbin ink looks brown whereas the 234 seems immune to UV.

Somebody should roast some ink samples under a UV sun-bed.

 

If I wanted to try the Hero 232 bottled ink I can't easily get it from ebay.

Has it been re-numbered/repackaged? There is a Hero range numbered 201 red , 202 Blue, 203 Blue and 204 Black. The bottles are now rectangular with bevelled corners, not round.

It looks like 202 & 203 are permanent blue & washable blue respectively in the package shots. This isn't necessarily what they are on a sheet of paper if you did a swatch of each with a cotton bud.

Edited June 19, 2018 by Dip n Scratch

[Mech-for-i]

The 234 is a true carbon ink so its highly unlikely it will fade to brown if any at all. And no the 232 is still 232 ... the 20X range is another series of ink from the same company.