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I really enjoy grey inks and this one is my favorite. I think it works great with cheaper copy paper which I use everyday at work. it's work friendly which is a bonus when I need to leave notes for the boss. Following are how it looks on different paper. I hope you enjoy. Rhodia Copy Paper 90g Copy Paper 75g

Robert Oster Signature Inks - Quick review of 16 lovely inks You can find Part 2 here. You can find Part 3 here. You can find Part 4 here. Exciting news.. a new PLAYER has enter the Ink World.. Robert Oster Signature Inks !! I was quite excited to see quick reviews of these inks. You all know how much I love new inks. New colors are always exciting to me. Looking at the line up of Robert Oster, it seems that he has been busy. More than 30 colors are currently available at his eBay store. (31 inks on eBay and maybe 7 more.. total of 38) In any case, I was dying to get my eager paws on some of his creations.. so I went ahead a selected a few colors then some more oh well. Someone might have gone a little overboard But hey!!... couldnt resist a good deal. I got: Yellow SunGreen OliveKhakiLight GreenLime GreenJadeEmeraldDeep SeaTurquoiseAustralian SkyBondi BlueBlue DenimBlue NightFire Engine RedBurgundyChocolateThey come in these cute bottles that are quite misleading.. they contain 50ml of inks and dont look much bigger than the Diamine plastic bottles. I believe Robert Oster's bottles are of a much better plastic; they are quite sturdy and the caps closes tightly. Not one spill, not even a drop of ink crept out. Mr. Oster was having a special of adding a pen (Jinhao) for every bottle you purchased. I believe that offer was for the Australian market (the weight of the pens will definitely be costly for international shipping).. In any case, he was so sweet to add 4 pens for me to try out. I never experienced this specific model of Jinhao, but I am quite happy to check them out. I LOVE broad, flex, wet pens You can imagine that I run into problems almost everywhere I go (unless sticking to the best paper). I did not bother testing with the worst paper possible. Most of us try our best to use at least decent paper. If you are forced to use bad paper, then stick to very fine nibs with medium to dry flow and you should be ok. For the purposes of this compendium-review, I use 4 types of paper. Two of them are decent fountain pen friendly (most of the time), one is excellent and the last one is not really meant for fountain pens but I happen to use it to create my swatch cards. Regular Decent Paper Black nRedRegular Decent Paper Rhodia Dot PadFantastic Paper Tomoe RiverAbsorbent Paper Maruman MnemosyneMy regular notebook is the Black nRed, I use Rhodia only for testing and Tomoe River is mostly for fun, doodling and testing inks. A great ink just looks FANTASTIC on Tomoe and because of the way it lets inks pool on the surface.. if an ink has the ability to sheen, Tomoe River will show it. To start, these inks are WET. Really wet. I do enjoy wet inks, but since most my pens are wet pens wet+wet.. is a tad too wet. I believe these inks will work much better on medium nibs and they will also help a dryish pen. Colors are nicely saturated and most of them display very nice sheen. BLACK nRED This is paper works 90% of the time. I tend to use extremely wet pens (broads and flexs) and this paper will sometimes fails me. Only very few inks misbehave on this paper. I enjoy the sturdiness of the hardbound cover and the whiteness of the paper enhances the color of the inks. I do enjoy using this paper and I was gladly surprised that NONE of the Robert Oster inks bleed, showed or feathered on this paper. Some of these inks display a nice amount of sheen on this paper

I bought several inks when I bought my first several pens so I had a little bit to sample from. Here are the inks I initially bought: Noodler's Eternal Polar Blue. (Bought it with my Lamy Safari at store and was the only blue available.) Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku Boxed Set (Bought it for Kon-Peki) Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-Peki Pilot Iroshizuku Momiji Pilot Iroshizuku Yu-Yake I've been happy with all the colors above in all my pens except I don't like the Noodler's Eternal Polar Blue all the much; I especially don't like it in my Lamy Safari. I've put all those inks in my Safari over this last week and the Iroshizuku inks seem to flow better in the Safari. The Noodler's Polar Blue seems to make my Safari have slow starts. Anyways it has seeped in my mind that the nib on my Safari may be out of alignment which I plan on looking at as soon as I pick up a good loupe. I have a magnifying glass, but it just doesn't have a high enough magnification to really get a good look at it. Has anyone else noticed issues with Noodler's inks? Someone else had a thread recently about Noodler's Elysium not working well in there Safari. I would like to try some other Noodler's blues, turquoises, and other colors; but now I am afraid that I'll have similar issues as with the polar blue. As I mentioned above The Iroshizuku inks seem to flow significantly better in the Safari. I plan on buying some more inks to try, but there is so much out there would like to hear from people on what they think are the "Staple" or "Must Have" inks that all newcomers should get / try. I tend to lean more towards the blues and turquoises, and greens. Having said that I recently stumbled upon some reds like Sailor Oku-Yama and Diamine Ancient Cooper and purples like De Atramentis Aubergine and Sailor Shigure that looks really cool and may pick them up so really I am open to all color suggestions.

I have just ordered the 4 Seasons inks and have several demonstrator p ens I would like to use these inks in, but don't want to stain them. Does anyone have experience with Visconti Opera, Pelikan M8XX, M2XX demonstrator pens and the Sailor inks? Please share! Thanks in advance!

Hello All, On this particularly sunny day, we're delighted to announce that we've now been officially unveiled as an Authorised Retailer for the wonderful Robert Oster inks. We're working furiously on a new website, which will allow you to order online, but for now here's an FPN special. For the first time, they'll be available directly from us in the UK (EU customers welcome too)! Our first stock of inks will be arriving in the next couple of weeks and the initial colour selection is listed below... but here's what we thought, how about we give the wonderful people of FPN the chance to add whatever they want to our shipment. Our official stock of colours will be as follows, drum roll please... Blue seaSummer stormGrun SchwartzEmeraldBlue BlackClaretBarossa GrapeDirect sunDeep SeaJade Price will be £14.95 per 50ml bottle + shipping (detailed below). So, what we'll do is up until the end of Thursday, if you send us a message with your requirements (colour swatches below), we'll then add them to the shipment and send them on to you once they've arrived with us. We would ask for pre-payment (via paypal or bank transfer). To keep it really simple for you, here's the shipping charges for this initial 'add whatever you like' order... UK 1-4 Bottles: £5.45 5-9 Bottles: £8.95 10 Plus Bottles: Free of Charge EU Countries 1 - 4 Bottles: £12.50 5 - 14 Bottles: £16.00 15 Plus Bottles: Free of Charge We're really delighted to be involved with Rob and the wonderful inks that he produces... more exciting news to come soon. Until then, have a good day. Roy

Here are the sketches I did using the FPN exclusive inks, used each ink to draw the person it was named after, hope you all like it. Best regards. Voltaire Candide Vermilion. Galileo Manuscript Brown. Dumas Tulipe Noire. Van Gogh Starry Night Blue.

Today I was visiting a store that only sells old stuff, not really an antiquary, more like an hoarder that buys and resells old things that many could tought of as complete junk. There I found and bought 15 packs of fountain pen ink cartridges for the grand total of 2 Euros. I wouldn't qualify these inks as vintage, although they are old. However, the ink in the cartridges seems to be in good shape, no evaporation signs or whatsoever. I thought it could be neat to have a topic where to show and discuss these kind of findings. So, what do you think of my latest acquisitions? http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/900x600q90/923/zhqUZq.jpg

So I ordered a bottle of ink from Robert Oster, and this is what I received: The bottle of Barossa Grape I'd ordered A same-sized bottle of Claret Sample bottles of Burgundy, Sea Blue, Peach and something else that I can't recall A Jinhao pen A note, sealed with wax, expressing thanks for my purchase All wrapped nicely in gold foil. A beautiful package, which cost a packet to ship. If you want to have Christmas, order from this guy.

Diamine have announced today that they are almost ready to launch their latest "shimmer" inks. They should be available at the end of September or the beginning of October. They are called Diamine Shimmertastic inks, and each ink will come in a 50ml glass bottle. Each ink contains either silver or gold particles and these are the colours: NIGHT SKY ( Black/Silver) BLUE PEARL ( Blue / Silver) A medium blue shade PURPLE PAZZAZZ (Purple / Gold) MAGICAL FOREST (Green/ Silver) BLUE LIGHTNING (Blue / Silver) A cerulean type blue shade RED LUSTRE (Red / Gold) SHIMMERING SEAS (Blue / Gold) A blue-black shade BRANDY DAZZLE (Brown / Gold) GOLDEN SANDS (Yellow / Gold) SPARKLING SHADOWS ( Grey / Gold) Reviews to follow soon.

PW Akkerman Pen shop in The Hague, Netherlands is located in The Passage. The Passage is a street made into a mall and covered with a high glass roof. The Passage was created in 1885 and PW Akkerman opened his pen shop in 1910. Another PW Akkerman shop located in Amsterdam was sold off and is not connected with the original shop. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PW%20Akkerman%20The%20Passage_zpscfvl3eek.jpg http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PW%20Akkerman%20Storefront_zpswd3p71qf.jpg The front windows at PW Akkerman would fascinate anyone with an interest in fountain pens. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PW%20Akkerman%20display%202_zpsbmynyfah.jpg http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PW%20Akkerman%20display%201_zpstibnej8s.jpg Inside, the shop offers fountain pens, a variety of inks, and a small collection of notepads, note books and quality paper. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PK%20Akkerman%20Shop%20scene%202_zpsos1tcdnf.jpg There is a display of old fountain pen inks and bottles. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PKA%20Ink%20Shelves_zpszskg5v5c.jpg http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PKA%20Vintage%20Ink%20Display_zpsc2fh32mg.jpg Of special interest are the proprietary PW Akkerman inks. The inks come in a special bottle with two chambers and a glass ball stopper. One can invert the bottle to pour ink into the upper chamber then return the bottle to an upright position. The glass marble drops into place and retains ink in the small upper chamber of the bottle to facilitate drawing the ink into a fountain pen. The inks come in a variety of colors. Purchasers are cautioned that the house brand ink is well saturated and inclined to dry if stored in a fountain pen for long. So, use of the ink in an easily rinsed pen, such as a fountain pen with a removable converter, is recommended. The Akkerman ink costs 15 Euros (currently $16.71 USD). Purchased from the store in quantities of 5 bottles, the per bottle cost with shipping is a bit over $21. The same ink is available from US Internet pen shops for $30. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PK%20Akkerman%20Ink%20Display_zpstysde4cd.jpg The shop deals exclusively in new pens and offers a wide variety of Monte Blanc, Pelikan, Waterman, Cross, and Visconte pens including specimens from current and some past special editions. There are smaller collections of other fountain pen brands. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PW%20Akkerman%20sales%20counter_zpsmdch9wdy.jpg Photos of the store owners 1910 to 2010 hang over the Monte Blanc Display. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PK%20Akkerman%20Shop%20scene%201_zpssabl9ddx.jpg There are also some beautiful lacquered pens on display. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PKW%20Painted%20Pens_zps8ptgw0an.jpg My favorite among the lacquered pens were these Romanov pens. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PKA%20Rominoffs%201_zpsx5rowgcd.jpg The most interesting pen I saw was this Dupont “Shoot the Moon” fountain pen that looks like a cannon. With the available pen stand it would be impressive on one’s desk. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PKA%20Cannon%20Pen_zpsez5m4c7r.jpg One needs souvenirs from a vacation. Mine from this trip are a special edition Vibrant Blue Pelikan M805 with silver trim and bottles of PW Akkerman ink in Shocking Blue and Bekakt Haags, a dark brown. http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m326/PatientType/Pen%20Shops/PKA%20What%20I%20Bought_zpszcggaccz.jpg

I get a frequent E-mail from Jet Pens touting their sales. In the latest one they make a big thing about having Noodler's inks in stock. So I looked. The price of every Noodler's ink on their site is $15 per bottle, and these are the French square bottles, the "3 oz." ones. Is the price of Noodler's ink being raised by 20% everywhere, or is Jet Pens the only one charging this new price for it? Will we see other vendors selling Noodler's inks for more soon? I know that Nathan went to the (mostly) unpopular plastic bottles for a while in order to avoid a price rise on the inks, so it would seem strange for him to suddenly raise the price by 20% after that experience.

Robert Oster is a new arrival on the ink scene from the sunny climes of Australia and he produces a large range of ink colours in neat, tall bottles with secure caps and a gold label. There have been a few reviews of his inks and personally, the inks that I have tried have been very good and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. Until now you had to buy directly from him, choosing seven inks to fit in an international package. Now his inks will be available through Sakura (link below). I just thought that people might like to know as it is quite an extensive range of inks and in my dealings with him he's been such a gentleman and a pleasure to order from and it's exciting to see a new ink range come to market that could potentially do very well. (No affiliation etc, etc) http://www.sakurafountainpengallery.com/en

Hi, On the 20th May 2016 I am lucky to be going to Tokyo and Osaka. What would you contemplate buying that is interesting, different, you cannot buy elsewhere, (especially the United Kingdom) etc. and from where? I am into Urban Sketching so also want to visit there art supply shops It could be pens, strange nibs on pens, pencils, paper, inks, calligraphy (like), sharpeners or anything else pen, calligraphy or stationary related. All suggestions no matter how wild and wacky will be very welcome

I recently had a strange experience with a Bungbox ink - Oranges of Lake Hamana. I really like this ink, in fact it is one of my all time favourites. It doesn't have any sheen, but the shading and the colour really hit the spot for me. It usually has a real 'liveliness' on the page. However, when I used it on Tomoe River Paper I was quite disappointed. It had a little shading but not nearly as much as on other papers and it lost all of its 'liveliness' to appear quite flat. I've noticed this with a few other inks and I guess it has something to do with the absorbancy of Tomoe River but hadn't expected to see it with this particular ink. Anyway, I thought it might be interesting and useful to list any other inks that demonstrate this behaviour on Tomoe.

I had a question on a few inks: Are the Pilot Irushuzi (or whatever they are) worth the price? Are the J. Herbin 1670 inks as awesome as they look? Is the Alexander Hamilton ink any good? link below http://www.andersonpens.com/De-Atramentis-Alexander-Hamilton-35ml-Bottle-p/da-1126.htm

I have always loved fountain pens and generally use a Pilot or Lami for writing. I was an exchange student my junior year of college in Germany and was amazed that the young students learned cursive from the beginning (and not printing first) and used "junior" models of fountain pens. As a matter of fact, you will still see " beginner" fountain pens among office supplies in a grocery store! I am into calligraphy in a major way and use a Pilot Parallel pen for my practice and have all four sizes. I do not like some of the ink in the Pilot cartridges, especially the black. It feathers and soaks through many types of paper, and I wonder why they don't improve it. There are a lot of complaints out there! I load my Pilot handle with ink or refill cartridges with a syringe. I just tried Noodler's bulletproof black in my Pilot pen and it is wonderful. I also have two Osmiroid pens that I have cleaned up and am using again. Hope to hear from other calligraphy fans.

Hello, I am new to the world of fountain pens. I've recently bought a couple of Jinhao X750 pens. Those two were the last ones in stock. I'd like to add some more to my collection but not able to find any shop selling them. I've checked online as well. Online shops sell them at a much higher price (At a retailer a x750 costs around 250/- but online shops sell them for around 600-1200/- each). Does anybody know shops in mumbai which sell Jinhao pens?

Recently, my parents have said that If I get straight a's, I will get $100 to spend on pens. Right now, my pre-prepared cart on goulet has a rhodia dotpad, a jinhao 159+ goulet nib, a faber-castell basic, and a twsbi eco. I was thinking of replacing one of the pens to buy some more ink, as all I have now is noodler's black and a set of black-cap winsor and newton inks that I don't trust. If I had to get rid of a pen, which should I get rid of?

Anniversary Collection – on release from 17th November 2014. To celebrate 150 years of the Diamine brand they have created the “Anniversary Collection”. The new triangular design ink bottles contain 40ml and will be available in eight stunning colours: these bottles when collected can be arranged into a beautiful round desk display. I haven't been given any notification of price point yet but unlike the previous two Diamine collections, all these new inks will be available separately from the start. AND there are possible rumours of additional colours in the future! As usual, my scans are of dip-tested writing, using Lamy Safari pens with M nibs. I use a small sable paintbrush for the 'swatches' but don't re-dip the brush between each one. The paper is my normal Rhodia 80gsm dot grid A5. Diamine 1864 Blue Black As you might expect, this is my favourite of all the Anniversary inks. A wonderful, rich dark blue-black with plenty of character. Obviously suitable for business and personal use and when compared alongside a black ink, 1864 definitely isn't! Fabulous! Diamine Silver Fox This is a mid grey in my opinion and although not one of my favourite 'colours' this one from Diamine will almost certainly be a winner. Along with Graphite, it will certainly find its way into my collection. Diamine Regency Blue A wonderful, deep blue which is nice and rich. Plenty of character and this again could be used for business and personal writing. Diamine have been careful not to make these inks similar to any others of their range and I can't compare it to any at all. Obviously, others out there might well liken them to others by different manufacturers but that's all part of the fun, isn't it?! Diamine Safari What can one say? The 'missing link' between Salamander and Evergreen! A fantastic colour and one which will definitely get into the Limoges collection. My joint second-favourite, it reminds me of that wonderful 'bush' grass colour and if I had to compare this one, I'd say it was like Epinard. But I could be wrong...! Diamine Carnival Gorgeous red – if that's your bag! I don't use them as a rule but have to say that this ink and colour impressed me a lot. I can imagine it being popular and, along with Ciamine/Cult Pens Deep Dark Red, could well complete my collection at this part of the spectrum. Diamine Blue Velvet This wonderful ink is my second-favourite of the set; but only just and by the proverbial gnat's whisker! Bright and cheerful are the best words I can use to describe it and I just love it. It seems to be between Aster and Cornflower from the Flower set and it fits in that gap nicely. A lovely blue and my second favourite of the set. Diamine Terracotta This one has grown on me since I did the test and have typed this out. Not too pale at all and even dipped and on Rhodia it seems to shade quite well. Not that that bothers me in the slightest. A good colour but not one of my usual ranges. Diamine Tropical Green A good mid green with just a hint towards the blue side, according to my eyes. I bet it would look great on ivory or yellow/legal paper. It could be the only green to get if that's a colour that you hadn't considered before. As I mentioned, these eight inks are being sold separately and that is going to be a real bonus for Diamine. A newly-designed and hand-illustrated box with ink colour label completes the packaging. Each bottle is labelled uniquely, with the colour on the label and side panels which are printed on the sides of the boxes although that isn't quite clear from the photograph, supplied by Diamine.) This example is for the 1864 Blue Black. Finally, as if we didn't know, the inks have been developed to celebrate the 150th Anniversary. May we all wish Diamine well - a wonderful British achievement!

If you have any inks that you would recommend for an expensive or a vintage fountain pen, what would it be? If you have a list of them, I would love to see that. Feel free to also say what inks you would specifically stay away from when using expensive pens. Currently I only have 2 inks, one is a black Parker Quink which I like a little bit. Not a huge fan, but if I need a black, it gets the job done. The other one is Noodler's Liberty's Elysium, which I love so very much. It's the nicest blue I have ever seen by far. However, I did notice that it stained the feed of my Metropolitan blue as well. So I decided that I would never let that happen if I were to get a more expensive or a vintage pen. More so a vintage pen because I respect vintage items and would rather not do something that will make it changed forever (I have 2 vintage saxophones that I use, I freak out even if I barely tap them against a music stand, chair, or another person's instrument). Does anyone else have this problem with Liberty's Elysium? For some reason I thought only Baystate colors had that problem. If you need to know what colors I'm particularly interested in, well, personally I prefer either a gold-brown, green, regular brown, blue-green, grey, and blue. However, I already have a blue and would like to get either a green, blue-green, brown/gold-brown, or grey. I am well aware that there is such thing as grey-greens and gold-greens as well as other combination colors, those apply to the things I wouldn't mind trying out.

I recently purchased a used Lamy Dialog 3. I wrote with it before going to bed and it didn't start right up in the morning. It required a few line strokes to get it writing again. The ink that I use in it is Noodler's Heart of Darkness. My guess is, it might be the pen and ink combination that causes the problem. What inks have you found to not have startup problems after not using it for 6 to 8 hours, a day or so? Thanks for all your suggestions in advance.

Hey hi! Thanks for taking interest. Could anyone help me out with ink stores in India? I would prefer the ones who give an option to order online. (Of course, I cannot travel all of India just for some ink bottles :/ ) I live in a small town & all that is available here is Camlin Blue & Red inks. If you are lucky, you may find Parker Quinky. I'm looking for inkwells up to INR 500 but cannot find stores. I have been swarming the internet since last week but to no good. I've been through pensavenvue.com, pensindia.com & of course snapdeal, flipkart, ebay and amazon. Here's what I've seen: Pelikan inks (32/65ml base colors RGBY) : INR 200-400 : OUT OF STOCK Diamine inks (30-60ml base colors RGY, blue available): INR 375-500: OUT OF STOCK Waterman inks: Same, out of stock. I mean, come on! All they've got of these brands are 850 & above! You name it! Lamy, Diamine, Waterman, J.herbin, etc. Can't find varied colors in any local brands & I'm not going to use camlin. I've tried to shop cross country but the shipping charges are more than the cost of product, obviously. :/ I currently use PILOT NAMIKI IROSHIZUKU - Ku-jaku Peacock Deep Turquoise Blue (50ml) & it cost me 1500 INR. I ordered it from engeika.com. If you buy the same thing from any of the Indian stores, you get it for 2500. Now, I can't afford 1500 for ever color and just for 50ml. So, I'm looking for varied colors & a bit of quality at the same time. So, any suggestion regarding stores / places to buy would be helpful. Also, please let me know if there are any Indian brands who make good inks. Thank you!

Visited Parker's new version website for UK (USA site is same old one). On it, it seems that Parker is going to relaunch some more colors, both in bottle and cartridge, as earlier only washable blue, black and blue-black were mentioned (it is still same, there on USA-Shop Online site). Same has been changed for China and Japan as well.

The long-awaited "Colours of Australia" ink range from Just Write Pens has finally arrived in-store - I placed my order on Wednesday, and look what arrived in my letterbox today! Reviews to follow in the appropriate forum, as I find the time...

I thought it might be useful to have a thread that lists writers experiences of fading inks. I usually try and avoid inks that fade a lot, but some fade only a little and while this doesn't bother me too much it might bother others. For ease of reading, perhaps we can devise a grading of fading as follows: Significant: the ink fades very significantly, either in terms of a big change of colour or in shade or has disappearing or unreadable text. Moderate: The text is still readable, but there is a noticeable shift in colour or shade but it is still, more or less, the colour it proclaims itself to be. Mild: Some fading, but you have to look hard at comparisons to notice. For me, I would like to avoid inks that have significant fading. Sometimes this can be noticeable within weeks of laying the ink on the page and at other times it doesn't become apparent until a year or two later. Thankfully I have yet to discover a 'significant' fading ink. Here's my list: Iroshizuku Fuyu-Gaki (Moderate) Waterman Mysterious Blue (Moderate)+ Montbanc Royal Blue (Moderate) Noodler's Cactus Fruit Eel (Mild) Diamine Majestic Blue (Mild) Akkerman Verhoot (Mild) Noodler's Purple Martin (Mild) Sailor Bungbox Happiness (Mild) J Herbin Blue Pervenche (Mild) Montblanc Leo Tolstoy (Moderate)* Pelikan Edelstein Topaz (Mild) Montblanc Dark Blue (Moderate) +I'm a little concerned about this one. I haven't had it long and it has faded very noticeably. *This discovery hurt. I love this ink. It seems to survive alright in a normal nib, but a stub nib highlights the shift in shade.