Standardgraph Inks

[QM2]

 

Standardgraph inks have been mentioned a couple of times here on FPN, but this is obviously a brand that is not used by many. Back in the US, I'd never even heard of it. Now that I am living in Austria and see this brand all the time, it baffles me why it has such a low profile outside the German-speaking world.

 

The colors are SUPERB: interesting, unusual shades, such as Reed Green (the perfect grass-stain green! I was so excited when I tried it), Fig Brown, Poppy Red, Forget-Me-Not Blue, Silver, Gold, and Anthracite, just to name a few! The flow of the inks is great, they are fairly water-resistant, and the price is only 4 euros per bottle.

 

I don't understand it: Nearly every stationary shop in every town in Germany and Austria sells Standardgraph inks, has huge displays of them right next to the Lamy, Pelikan, Faber Castell and MB FP displays, and right next to Herbin and R&K inks -- yet the international presence, or even their online presence, is next to zero. I cannot find any solid info about this company online.

 

Does anybody have a clue as to why this is? Is Standardgraph a German subdivision of some other, well-known ink company and that is why they only exist locally? Is there something very bad about these inks that renders them unexportable and accounts for their low price? In terms of colors and flow, this is such a cool and well-behaved ink that I imagine FP lovers outside Germany & Austria would be only too pleased to have access to it, so I truly don't get it!

 

Any ideas?

 

http://www.pen-paradise.de/shop/shpSR.php?...A=56&p1=269

[click on the picture of the 3 bottles to see a full color chart]

 

[SB1]

Very interesting colours. Do you know if they ship to the UK?

[QM2]

Very interesting colours. Do you know if they ship to the UK?

 

 

Sorry, I've no idea -- but you can simply email them and ask, they probably speak English.

 

Maybe I should buy some from my local shop and export them for extra cash : )

 

QM2

 

 

 

[juhtolv]

Very interesting colours. Do you know if they ship to the UK?

 

I don’t know. But you can buy them from missing-pen.de, too.

[Goodwhiskers]

Hmmm. It looks like Standardgraph uses the same bottle as Delta, Conway-Stewart and Pelikan (small) with a distinct cap and label. The price does look great! I'm also surprised that bottled Sheaffer Skrip is so much more expensive there than Waterman and Pelikan 4001.

[QM2]

 

The company that makes them also makes office products and low-end art supplies.

http://www.standardgraph.de/index.html

not much info there as you can see!

 

 

 

 

 

[Dr Lopez]

The company that makes them also makes office products and low-end art supplies.

http://www.standardgraph.de/index.html

not much info there as you can see!

 

Actually, the page is not very fancy, but it does have lots of information. To be precise, about the concerned ink you have to download the pdf file:

 

http://www.standardgraph.de/pdf_kataloge/sr_katalog_09.pdf

 

with very nice examples of the colors.

Edited July 4, 2009 by Dr Lopez

[Miranda]

Oh Great. Do you realise what you have done, QM2? You will have hundreds of us spending hours working out how to import these inks, which colours to buy, how many to buy. I'm supposed to be avoiding ink temptations after the J Herbin and Iro Shizuku buying binge, but now...only 4 euros a bottle...

[Michael R.]

... You will have hundreds of us spending hours working out how to import these inks, which colours to buy, how many to buy.

 

 

I think Rolf Thiel of www.missing-pen.de sells Standardgraph inks and ships them abroad.

 

Here is a scan I did some time ago of all colors:

 

http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn140/PENSnINKS/Inks/StandardgraphIKopie.jpg

 

 

This flyer shows all available colors with names and label:

 

http://freenet-homepage.de/pensninks/Standardgraph.jpg

 

Some of the inks are even scented (e.g. mallow red). In general they behave very nice and compare to inks made by Herbin or Diamine in terms of properties.

 

Cheers

 

Michael

Edited July 5, 2009 by Michael R.

[vans4444]

As far as I am aware the ink is not available in the UK so I got two bottles from a Spanish ebay supplier to try out. I was surprised to see that there were no Standardgraph ink reviews, so a few months back I had a go at reviewing their Blueberry and Forget Me Not Blue (a daunting task for a newbie).

 

I cannot fault the ink, it is well behaved and I like the colours. It was my intention to buy more but never did because I discovered that I could but Diamine ink easier and cheaper. Diamine also have a huge range of colours to work through.

 

 

[ZeissIkon]

...only 4 euros a bottle...

 

But that's a 30 ml bottle -- after currency exchange, that puts Standardgraph inks well above the price range of Diamine, PR, and Noodler's.

[saintsimon]

... You will have hundreds of us spending hours working out how to import these inks, which colours to buy, how many to buy.

...

 

Here is a scan I did some time ago of all colors:

 

http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn140/PENSnINKS/Inks/StandardgraphIKopie.jpg

 

 

...

 

Cheers

 

Michael

 

Thanks for the scans, Michael. The browns I got here locally were nowhere as good as these, they were terrible and even stained the bottle they were in. Maybe they went bad.

 

The "best" colours they have are blueberry and burgundy, IMHO. Burgundy doesn't shade, but is of a true wine colour.

The "blues" in this scan are actually violets and purple shades in real life (as usual violets and purples are a challenge for scanners), Standardgraph has no true blue. The Beerenblau/blueberry purple is very unique, as I haven't found a matching colour at other manufacturers. Forget me not blue is a chalky blue-violet (depending on the light).

Edited July 5, 2009 by saintsimon

[scribbler77]

I am glad that QM2 brought this up. I, too, have some Standardgraph inks--five, to be precise--and find the colors attractive and the inks well behaved. I purchased some of mine from Rolf Thiel (missing-pen.de) and others during a trip to Berlin.

 

I do not know who makes them or where. One of the mysteries I have not solved yet is why some companies that sell ink under a particular label refuse to divulge who made it. It is known that Pelikan supplies Cross and that Diamine manufactures Yard-o-Led and that Fahrney's inks are made by Private Reserve, which also supplies Bexley. In these cases the inks seem to be the same as the ones the manufacturers sell under their own name. (Yard-o-Led, however, gives the colors different names.)

 

We also know that some manufacturers supply inks for re-labelling. It has been said that Diamine exports substantial amounts to the European continent for sale under other labels. These are not necessarily the same inks as those Diamine sells under its own label. After all, if you are an ink manufacturer, you can make inks from different formulas. The customer could even specify a particular chemical formula that is unique for it. So one should not assume that all inks by a given manufacturer are similar--as some do when they say "buy" (or "don't buy") inks of this or that brand.

 

For this reason, it is a mystery to me why the name of the manufacturer (or the ink "designer") is considered a trade secret in these cases. It does seem obvious that firms like Cartier, S.T. Dupont, Faber-Castell--and, probably, Montblanc, Montegrappa, Delta and many other well-know pen makers in Europe--do not manufacture the ink sold under their labels.

 

Getting back to Standardgraph, my guess (it is only that) is that it is made by a company that puts out its own label, therefore allows commercial distribution only in a limited area where its label is not readily available.

 

I may be wrong, but if somebody knows better, I would welcome correction. So far I have found the Standardgraph inks I have (Cypress green, Coffee brown, Mallow red, Burgundy, and Sky Blue) to be quite attractive and reasonably priced--though not really "cheap," given the 30ml bottles.

[watvolk]

Hello,

you can order the Standardgraph inks and art supplies at our shop. Please ask for shipping costs because they are depending on weight of the parceln and destination.

Kind regards

[Bo Bo Olson]

Living in Germany, I've not seen them (or heard of them) in Heidelberg. It could be in the Art shop, but I didn't notice any there when I went looking for dip pen ink.

Could be I was not looking.

I'll take a look the next time I get to town and that section.

 

 

I spend €12 on 30 ml MB ink...so € 4 is cheap enough. If that is still the price since this gray beard post was made. 4.15 is not keeping up with inflation.

 

22 colors....

All I needed was many more inks to dither about.

Edited October 25, 2012 by Bo Bo Olson

[amberleadavis]

Oh no. Now I need a sample or 22 to include in the experiments for next summer.