Ink Bottle vs Ink Cartridge

[captnemo]

Sheaffer standard cartridges (the kind used in school pens) hold 1.4 cc of ink.

 

Phil

 

 

I hope u mean the long cartridges... I've never seen sheaffer cartridges... sorry.

 

 

There is only one kind of Sheaffer cart that I'm familiar with. I vaguely remember that there is another kind but have no experience with it. The school pen carts are flat at both ends and are pierced by a sharp device at the rear of the section housing. They hold approximately 1.4 cc.

 

http://www.dick-blick.com/items/208/23/20823-group3ww-l.jpg

 

Phil

[AndreaDuni]

very nice... because of the compatibility of sheaffer pens with international and waterman cartridges, in my city I have never found sheaffer cartridges. Now I think that sheaffer makes the most capable cartriges... what about mont blanc?

comparing sheaffer skrip bottle (60 ml) we have that 1 bottle = 42 cartridges. Looking around ebay I can see that in any box there are 5 cartridges and the retail price is around 3 euro and because I payed my bottle 6.50 euro, it means that the cartridges cost 3.8 times more than bottles!! I know that cartridges are for travel and school, but it is a very big difference.

[AndreaDuni]

Uh? your signature is "Cathy" but your avatar colour is orange... so are you male or female?

 

I'm a female. Not sure about the little orange guy. What color should he (her?) be? It would be nice if it were purple.

 

 

I prefer you purple!! me orange you purple... nice

[wvbeetlebug]

Oops. I meant to reply in my other thread. :embarrassed_smile:

Edited May 25, 2007 by wvbeetlebug

[Ink Stained Wretch]

I have a feeling my Parker is going to eat up these cartridges. They are the long ones too and they last about one week since I use my pen for everyday use. This begs the question. How much more cost effective is it to buy bottled ink versus ink cartridges. I'm think bottled ink is more cost effective by a long shot. What do you think?

As others have said, bottled ink is cheaper per mL by at least 300%. And you can get more variety in bottles. Additionally, if you keep the ink around for a while before using it you'll find that the ink evaporates out of cartridges much faster than it does from glass bottles.

 

That is a good question. I was wondering about it too. To have a right idea I'm interested in ml/oz of ink inside these cartridges:

• standard international short cartridges = visconti, pelikan
• standard international long cartridges = waterman
• Parker and Aurora long cartridges
• Lamy cartridges
• Sheaffer cartridges
• Mont Blanc cartridges

I'll have some slight disagreement with some others' numbers, but these are my measurements, YMMV.

 

short international cartridge = ~0.75 to 0.8 mL

long international cartridge = ~1.2 mL

Shaeffer Type I cartridge = ~1.5 mL

Parker cartridges = ~1.4 mL

 

Now these are capacities, not necessarily how much ink you'll get in each cartridge. I've measured some short cartridges as having only 0.6 mL of ink in them, this from a guy who sells them in bulk on E-Bay. Rarely have I seen them filled up to the very top. The long international cartridges I've seen with very close to 1.0 mL in them. It's very variable. I suspect that in some cases some companies put very slightly less ink in cartridge rather than raise their prices for a while.

 

Of course when you refill cartridges from bottles you can get the full capacity in there and you have all of the advantages of bottled ink.

[AndreaDuni]

Thank you. This is very useful.

[Shangas]

Yeah, I found that real interesting as well

 

Apart from cost, value for money etc etc...there is one other reason why I use bottles instead of cartridges.

 

When I was younger, I used to lose pens...A LOT. As many as two or three in a day. As such, I used to have HUGE...HUGE reserves of useless ink-cartridges lying around. I mean HUGE, entire handfuls of cartridges. And if I couldn't find the pen, then the cartridges were pretty-much useless. Whereas, if I lost the pen, but bought another one, I could just dip it into a bottle of ink, instead of trying to find more cartridges. That's another reason why I prefer bottles over cartridges.

Edited May 27, 2007 by Shangas

[mr T.]

As others have said, bottled ink is cheaper per mL by at least 300%

 

Bottled ink could be much more expensive compared with private label international standard cartridges. Where I live does the best available bottled ink cost € 4,25 per 57ml (Parker Quink). Good quality international standard cartridges (very likely made by a well known manufacturer) sold under a private label costs at an in the Netherlands well known department store € 0,50 per 20. When a standard international cartridges holds about 0,75 ml of ink it means that per ml the Quink costs about € 0,07 and the ink from the cartridges between € 0,01 and € 0,02 per ml. That means, when I have to spend € 4,25 per bottle, using cartridges do cost for the same amount of ink just € 1,52. Using cartridges is at least 275% cheaper than using bottled ink this way.

[Pengrump]

I waste a lot more bottled ink than ink from cartridges. I wipe it off the pen's nib, feed, and section each time I fill a pen from a bottle. But then I don't have to fuss with the pen to get it started if I used bottled ink. With a cartridge I have to shake the, wet the nib, and sometimes dunk the nib into an ink bottle as well to get the pen to write.

[bob_hayden]

I agree with mr T. I think those calculations probably apply in most European countries where the use of fountain pens by school children drives down the price. Those inexpensive cartridges are not sold in the US except on eBay where at least three sellers import them unofficially. These sellers have short international cartridges for about 10 US cents each. I think that is well above the price in Europe but well below anything normally available in the US. I think you would have to pay less than $4 per 30 ml bottle to do better with bottled ink which would be hard to do. If you are happy with a limited color palette and content the use generic ink, these are a good deal. You can get Thornton cartridges for about 1/3 less. OTOH if you absolutely must have Bay State Blue forget cheap cartridges;-)

 

Cartridges are also nice if you just want to try an ink without buying a whole bottle of it. I would say that in most of the cases where I have tried inks in cartridges I ended up not wanting to buy a bottle (nor more cartridges). So cartridges were more economical there.

 

In addition, the calculations assume you will actually use all the ink in the bottle. Come on, FPN folks, I bet more than one of you has numerous bottles you will never finish

[Quill1]

Bottled ink is more cost effective and more choice, use what ever suits your needs at the time.

[chromantic]

I recently ordered a bottle of the new Diamine Dark Forest for $16, then thought that maybe I should have ordered the cartridges instead for $11.16/20-pack (which is quite reasonable, about $.55 each as opposed to the usual $1 each for most other brands). Turned out ok as I love the ink so will have no problem using it all.

 

On the other hand, I did order just a 5-pack of GvFC Deep Sea Green carts (in lieu of a $30 bottle) and, while I really like it, I only use that pen once or twice a month so the carts will last a while (I did order a 2nd pack, just to be safe). Same with Penman Ruby, ordered 2 6-packs but ended up wishing I'd only bought 1 and counted my blessings that I hadn't bought a bottle on ebay.

 

I've been disciplined enough to order the small 30 ml bottles of the standard Diamine inks even though my brain says "but the big bottle is only $5 more".