Mystery Chinese Ink From Aliexpress

[fudefan]

This might belong in the ink forum, but I'm posting it here because I'm hoping that a China expert like Mech-for-i will see it

Here's an ink I got from Aliexpress. It was dirt-cheap and is both beautiful and well-behaved, but the product listing is just an SEO keyword soup with very little information.

Does anyone know more about this brand?

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by fudefan

[Misfit]

The bottle looks very similar to 15ml size of Iroshizuku inks.

Sorry I can’t offer any help.

[OCArt]

It seems like there is an explosion of inks from China on eBay and Aliexpress. I recently got a Jinhao 5001 blue ink in a cubic 50ml bottle similar to the special edition Montblanc inks. (The ink was nothing special but with no glaring flaws either and it was very inexpensive.)

 

I think Chinese makers are very aware of the packaging of premium inks and are emulating them.

[fudefan]

By the way, here's the Aliexpress listing. Bottle design looks different there. It says Memory. Is that a brand name?

[taimdala]

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh .....

 

I feel a new ink obsession coming on ....

NO!

Must ... resist ... temptation ....

~*Holds breath ....*~

[Lomi]

would love to know more from experts too, I found their similar to iroshizuku 50ml bottles with scented and normal inks on aliexpress long time ago, and went to look who is making them, but all i could find is 2 original stores on taobao. One is called becomefish and it sells wide range of inks, another one is Fashion Show, they have similar bottles and they use word "memory" + "memoryfish" on their inks, there you could find yours 18ml bottle, also they probably sell scented inks that they call Aroma. Actually there also third store that also sells iroshizuku look alike inks but i doubt they producing them themselfs, they probably just ordering it for their store. btw i havent seen any other store that sells those inks so probably one of the first two stores is actually is original manufacturer of them.

Hope this somewhat helps, my zero knowledge of chinese doesn't allow me to dig deeper.

[fudefan]

Hi Lomi, thank you, good research! I've seen those bigger bottles too and am very tempted to order one.

[gerigo]

OK. This question got me on an interesting hunt around Taobao.

 

So the company that makes the ink is called 鱼忆七秒名品。Or "fashion show" as stated by Lomi. That's just the word used on the splash page on their landing page. The company is based in Ningbo and it's one of those boutique stationery companies that is cropping up right now across China, catering primarily to young females who focus on cheaper pens, beautiful colors and fun/ elegant paper. While they sell their own inks they also distribute their inks to other companies as well.

 

That's as much as I have found in the 15-20 minute search. Hope that's helpful.

[gerigo]

OK. This question got me on an interesting hunt around Taobao.

 

So the company that makes the ink is called 鱼忆七秒名品。Roughly translated as ... really no way to translate. "Memory of fish in 7 seconds famous product".... Or "fashion show" as stated by Lomi. That's just the word used on the splash page on their landing page. The company is based in Ningbo and it's one of those boutique stationery companies that is cropping up right now across China, catering primarily to young females who focus on cheaper pens, beautiful colors and fun/ elegant paper. While they sell their own inks they also distribute their inks to other companies as well.

 

That's as much as I have found in the 15-20 minute search. Hope that's helpful.

 

 

 

[nibtip]

I'd rather spend my money on european and american products. Even if they cost 10 times more.

Seeking cheap stuff for the sake of cheap is killing us.

[Mech-for-i]

Obviously you are too heated up with the CHEAP part of it .. while its cheap as far as the over sea market goes but these inks are primarily manufactured for their home market and priced as they are , art supply, stationary consumables instead of added value fashion / limited edition of sort. Most ink produced in China are such , as consumables and priced likewise .. cheap does not equate CHEAP in quality ... it just mean they are not priced as hobby , fashion items

 

The said ink in OP's post is one of the basic colour ( Blue Black ) in the older basic daily use ink range from the store brand " Three Pens " if I recall it this is the old package actually. The new packaging had a different label and one of the reason why this is cheap is that this is an out of production colour, the range had since split into 2 different range Pigment ( water proof ) and dye ( non water proof ) I had no idea what's the cost this ink for OP but the ink ( was ) priced RMB 9.90 per bottle of 18ML which is neither cheap nor expensive in its home market where its intended ( for ref .. for the same price you can get a bottle of Hero 232 iron gall blue black or a bottle of Hero 234 Carbon both 60ml but you will need roughly 2 times the cost to get a typical bottle of PenBBS 30-50ml varies )

 

P.S. the ink itself was manufactured by Tramol which itself had been producing ink for quite some time and had their own brand and own range

Edited April 15, 2020 by Mech-for-i

[gerigo]

I'd rather spend my money on european and american products. Even if they cost 10 times more.

Seeking cheap stuff for the sake of cheap is killing us.

I think you're missing the point. While I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT condone the lack of integrity in the rampant copying of pen designs that have been developed else where, development of ink and colors in my mind does not constitute any violation of intellectual properties. This is a really fun way for small companies to get into the game, and the winner is us the user. If you're a person who is seeking the fun, obscure colors that the big brands refuse to make, then your needs are now catered for. It's a win win situation for all.

[gerigo]

Obviously you are too heated up with the CHEAP part of it .. while its cheap as far as the over sea market goes but these inks are primarily manufactured for their home market and priced as they are , art supply, stationary consumables instead of added value fashion / limited edition of sort. Most ink produced in China are such , as consumables and priced likewise .. cheap does not equate CHEAP in quality ... it just mean they are not priced as hobby , fashion items

 

The said ink in OP's post is one of the basic colour ( Blue Black ) in the older basic daily use ink range from the store brand " Three Pens " if I recall it this is the old package actually. The new packaging had a different label and one of the reason why this is cheap is that this is an out of production colour, the range had since split into 2 different range Pigment ( water proof ) and dye ( non water proof ) I had no idea what's the cost this ink for OP but the ink ( was ) priced RMB 9.90 per bottle of 18ML which is neither cheap nor expensive in its home market where its intended ( for ref .. for the same price you can get a bottle of Hero 232 iron gall blue black or a bottle of Hero 234 Carbon both 60ml but you will need roughly 2 times the cost to get a typical bottle of PenBBS 30-50ml varies )

 

P.S. the ink itself was manufactured by Tramol which itself had been producing ink for quite some time and had their own brand and own range

Interesting! Thanks for the info. I have never heard of Tramol before! Are they a Chinese company? Do they have a Chinese name?

[nibtip]

My only desire is to support western culture, western manufactures including Taiwan, Japan, Corea and so on. Before it is too late.

These people are ruthless. Just be careful.

[mke]

> western culture, western manufactures including Taiwan, Japan, Corea and so on

 

Taiwan, Japan, Corea - western culture? :lticaptd:

[fudefan]

P.S. the ink itself was manufactured by Tramol which itself had been producing ink for quite some time and had their own brand and own range

Hi, very interesting, thank you! I'm starting to realize that Tramol is a major ink manufacturer over there.

[nibtip]

> western culture, western manufactures including Taiwan, Japan, Corea and so on

 

Taiwan, Japan, Corea - western culture? :lticaptd:

By saying culture, i meant "democratic" political culture albeit not perfect.

[inkstainedruth]

By saying culture, i meant "democratic" political culture albeit not perfect.

 

Be careful, nibtip -- this is sounding as if it's veering dangerously into "politics", which is not allowed on FPN. Remember that there are people from all over the world on here (not just from places considered "'democratic" political culture". I'm sure that too much more of this and the moderators will come along and lock the thread. It wouldn't be the first time; their goal is to stamp out potential flamewars before they get out of control.

Let's just stick to the discussion of this brand and color of ink, okay? Which appears to be an interesting color: the kind of blue-black like Edelstein Tanzanite that I really like better than the more teal leaning ones -- although I would never want to be without a bottle of Waterman Mysterious Blue because it's well behaved in some of my vintage pens (if I need a more permanent blue black, like Sailor Souboku or Noodler's 54th Massachusetts, I have modern pens to put those in).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[nibtip]

 

Be careful, nibtip -- this is sounding as if it's veering dangerously into "politics", which is not allowed on FPN. Remember that there are people from all over the world on here (not just from places considered "'democratic" political culture". I'm sure that too much more of this and the moderators will come along and lock the thread. It wouldn't be the first time; their goal is to stamp out potential flamewars before they get out of control.

Let's just stick to the discussion of this brand and color of ink, okay? Which appears to be an interesting color: the kind of blue-black like Edelstein Tanzanite that I really like better than the more teal leaning ones -- although I would never want to be without a bottle of Waterman Mysterious Blue because it's well behaved in some of my vintage pens (if I need a more permanent blue black, like Sailor Souboku or Noodler's 54th Massachusetts, I have modern pens to put those in).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Thank you Ruth. You are wise and telling the truth. And you are doing it with diplomatic tact.

I also like souboukou and i have ordered a Tanzanite bottle yesterday.

David.

Edited April 16, 2020 by nibtip

[Mech-for-i]

Interesting! Thanks for the info. I have never heard of Tramol before! Are they a Chinese company? Do they have a Chinese name?

Well that's going to take a bit of explanation.. yes the brand got a Chinese name, though since they almost always display TRAMOL the alphabets boldly on their bottle that stick as their name even more known than their actual name 采墨 , now that name demand some explanation ( for those who use translation engine ) the team 采墨 would translate as literally colour ink but of course that's not what it mean cause today the correct term to be used for colour ink would be 彩墨 , I would not go into the exact linguistic part of how the 2 character are related and developed so on so forth ; but needless to say the name the company used convey the idea of diverse and variety and vibrancy in the character 采 while if the character taken as verb it can mean harvest , florages so its a double take on using that to added to the character ink 墨