Where To Buy Penbbs Inks

[noddle]

I have become quite enamoured with Penbbs inks lately, especially some in the older series, two in particular:

270 Strawberry Milkshake

272 Haworthia

Vanness only has samples of 270, but I'd prefer to buy a full bottle as prices are reasonable.

 

So my questions are:

1. Can anyone recommend a reliable retailer of Penbbs inks (inc. older stock) that will ship to UK?

2. If anyone has had dealings with YOYCART.com or GlobalMall.com, were they reliable?

3. What shipping restrictions and import issues there may be.

 

Apologies if this topic has been covered before.

Much appreciated.

 

[MuddyWaters]

You may get more bites in the Chinese section. There are some very knowledgeable people there.

[Honeybadgers]

ebay and luck. It's technically illegal to sell fountain pen ink out of china, so people are smuggling them into HK and shipping from there. I've had no problems with the seller I used for the two bottles I got, but they aren't selling any more.

 

So short answer - no, there are no steady retailers for penBBS ink (or any chinese ink for that matter) due to laws. I wouldn't be too worried about buying it on ebay or aliexpress or taobao however. I had no problems having chinese inks shipped to the US - unsure if the UK would care about VAT, but once it's past chinese customs, there should be no problems.

[Methanius]

It's not all of their inks, but sakurafountainpengallery.com sells some PenBBS inks.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Methanius

[noddle]

Thanks for all the suggestions, think I'll try and place an order this week.

[DrRoger]

Rather late to this but, as the OP might have seen, Vanness are doing a 10% discount on PenBBS inks - the usual disclaimers re affiliation apply. V. much a satisfied customer though. Good range of inks & reasonable delivery £.

[bugsydog55]

There are some sellers on TaoBao and I have used TBFocus as an agent. There is a monster market of Chinese inks we never see here in the US. Currently have a box stuck in Chicago containing some of this unobtanium. It didn't take all that long to get from China to Chicago but it is stalled there for the last two weeks. There are some sellers of Pen BBS inks on the Taobao platform but the availability could be sketchy. Seems that Pen BBS either rotates their production or closes it out for older series of inks. I tried for several but kept getting out of stock notices. If you have time, it makes for great shopping because the prices are just plain ridiculously low but it does come with a downside. Shipping could break your piggy bank so beware.

[Antenociticus]

I've bought PenBBS inks via both eBay and AliExpress, but not for more than a year.

 

It was clear that stocks were running low at the sellers I was using – fewer and fewer colours available – and then two of the last bottles I ordered never arrived. The seller gave me a ridiculous runaround and I had to initiate a complaint at eBay in order to get a refund after months of waiting. At the time of the dispute, the seller stopped selling PenBBS inks. He (I assume it was a he) was the only eBay seller.

 

There no longer seems to be anyone selling them on AliExpress, either.

[A Smug Dill]

270 Strawberry Milkshake

272 Haworthia

Vanness only has samples of 270, but I'd prefer to buy a full bottle as prices are reasonable.

 

There no longer seems to be anyone selling them on AliExpress, either.

 

I saw some large bottles available on AliExpress just now, including #270 Strawberry Milkshake and #272 Haworthia cooperi Baker:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32880752298.html

 

"Free shipping", but the bottle price is far higher than I'm prepared to pay for a bottle of Chinese ink, especially when my experience with ink being shipped from China has not been great.

 

The seller also has some other listings of PenBBS inks, not all being the large (60ml) bottles, and not all are priced to include "free" international shipping. In some cases, the shipping fee by the cheapest delivery method just about doubles the price for a single bottle.

Edited September 19, 2020 by A Smug Dill

[Bfe6ff]

On 6/16/2020 at 3:44 PM, Honeybadgers said:

 It's technically illegal to sell fountain pen ink out of china, so people are smuggling them into HK and shipping from there.

 

 

Is it? that doesnt really make sense if that were true

[A Smug Dill]

1 minute ago, Bfe6ff said:

Is it? that doesnt really make sense if that were true

 

No, it isn't illegal. Chinese postal regulations apparently prohibit sending liquids outside of China by post (or common postal services); and some courier services such as DHL and FedEx seem not to accept such consignments for overseas destinations either. There are ‘special’ services that will (I presume legally and legitimately) ship liquid products internationally from China, but the sellers have to be bothered to offer the option to customers and use those services as necessary.

 

I received two shipments containing multiple bottles of inks from China in the last couple of months, by way of one of these ‘special’ services; and another recipient in Australia to which I sent inks (using her address as where the seller should ship the order directly) has also received hers.