Your Most Recent Impulsive Ink Purchase? (Replacement Bottles Don't Count.. Only 1St Timers!)

[Penguincollector]

  Beautiful inks, @JonSzanto! Lucky you, to be in Ginza while it rained! Sounds wonderful. 

[JonSzanto]

1 hour ago, Penguincollector said:

  Beautiful inks, @JonSzanto! Lucky you, to be in Ginza while it rained! Sounds wonderful. 

 

Thank you! Yes, the first bits hit in late afternoon, and after dinner, I went out on a late-night walk in the side streets and alleys and got some nice night/rain photos. It was a fortunate day.

[Ted Nashe]

On 11/16/2025 at 9:59 AM, boilermaker1975 said:

 

That is one of my favorites and my Onoto Faraday pen is always inked with it.

The bottle I ordered arrived today, and I see what you mean. It's such a lovely clean blue, like a summer sky, with no green or purple tones in it: a very usable ink indeed. I've bunged it in a Parker New Slimfold and it will be a long time, I'm sure, before I take it out. 💙👍💙

[boilermaker1975]

@Ted Nashe 💙👍💙

[Ceramicist]

20 hours ago, JonSzanto said:

Going on a mini-spree always relies on impulse, as I had no inks in mind beforehand. We recently returned from a two-week trip to Japan, which included not only a first week in Tokyo but 2 days at the Tokyo International Pen Show. Last year I came home with an even ten inks, this year... I don't know, I just picked them instinctively and somehow ended up with one less. I could have easily purchased 30 or more, but... I decided to look to an autumn palette, as we were getting some of the first turning of leaves early in the season. This was a quick swatch the first night I was home:

 

 

The first ink needs a special mention: it is the "Rainy Day" ink from Ancora Ginza, a Sailor ink they only sell on days when it rains. We had been out all day, on foot, and on our way back to the hotel my spouse noted that it was starting to sprinkle. "I'll see you back at the hotel", she said. I turned right at the next corner, as I was four blocks from the shop! They are so sweet and what a delightful place. In fact, they have an entire Rainy Day bundle (pictured below) including the ink, a pen (a variant on the Sailor Lecoule, I believe) and a special converter. The pen features an umbrella on the finial and nib, and little sparkles just on the section, and the converter has a hand-painted umbrella and rubber galoshes. It is a cute situation and last year it never rained, so when the drops started falling I knew where I wanted to go. 😊

 

How wonderful! The inks are all gorgeous, and I love the boxes, too. I love the story about the rain and the purchase of an ink and the Rainy Day bundle sold only when it rains. "When the drops started falling I knew where I wanted to go." So poetic!

[JonSzanto]

1 hour ago, Ceramicist said:

How wonderful! The inks are all gorgeous, and I love the boxes, too. I love the story about the rain and the purchase of an ink and the Rainy Day bundle sold only when it rains. "When the drops started falling I knew where I wanted to go." So poetic!

 

Aw, thanks. I think there are few places that can rival Japan, and Tokyo in particular, in feeling so much like heaven to a pen/ink/etc person. Mix it with a stunning, engrossing country and culture, and you can imagine how much magic I enjoyed.

[Runnin_Ute]

Picked up a 30 ml bottle of Diamine Autumn Oak (about three quarters full) at our local pen club meeting on November 8. 

[Ted Nashe]

8 hours ago, Runnin_Ute said:

Picked up a 30 ml bottle of Diamine Autumn Oak (about three quarters full) at our local pen club meeting on November 8. 

 

Nice one.👍 It's an excellent shader🍂🍁🍂🍁🍁🍂

[Ceramicist]

11 hours ago, JonSzanto said:

 

Aw, thanks. I think there are few places that can rival Japan, and Tokyo in particular, in feeling so much like heaven to a pen/ink/etc person. Mix it with a stunning, engrossing country and culture, and you can imagine how much magic I enjoyed.

We've not been and want to visit one day. Where we live in Hyde Park, NY, a sake brewery, Dassai Blue, is a fairly new addition. It is an incredibly beautiful facility, and this season, there is an opportunity to have a sushi omakase dinner with a Michelin chef- Tasuku Murakami- presiding. We're thinking we just might do it. 

[InkyProf]

@JonSzanto Sounds like a great trip, and that's a great collection of inks. I'm especially drawn to the Bungubox Kabayaki, but they're really all very appealing, somehow both slightly muted but deep. Thanks for sharing!

[JonSzanto]

4 hours ago, Ceramicist said:

We've not been and want to visit one day. Where we live in Hyde Park, NY, a sake brewery, Dassai Blue, is a fairly new addition. It is an incredibly beautiful facility, and this season, there is an opportunity to have a sushi omakase dinner with a Michelin chef- Tasuku Murakami- presiding. We're thinking we just might do it. 

 

Oh, that sounds like a wonderful event - DO IT!

 

2 hours ago, InkyProf said:

@JonSzanto Sounds like a great trip, and that's a great collection of inks. I'm especially drawn to the Bungubox Kabayaki, but they're really all very appealing, somehow both slightly muted but deep. Thanks for sharing!

 

Thank you. It's crazy: even though I already knew that the Japanese market was very deep in inks, having gone to a good number of stores last year, the visit to TIPS this year showed a bewildering number of inks for sale. There was one small maker, who patterned all of his inks on various jazz recordings from the mid-century period, that had what looked like 50 or 60 bespoke inks. So many choices...

[inkstainedruth]

Wow.  Those "bespoke" inks sound very interesting!

A few years ago a friend of ours got invited to be on a Japanese talk show (he was the crazy American interested in Japanese fiber arts).  I didn't hear about the trip until after he got back from the trip, but told him I might have given him a "shopping list" of Japanese inks.  Only he told me that the neighborhood where his hotel in Tokyo was was the neighborhood where all the local shops were for IIRC dishes and cookware.  
My parents never went to Japan (although they were world travelers).  I remember my mom's story about when she went to get her vaccination shots before going to China (this was back around 1980 when China was just reopening their borders to "the West") and how our doctor could NOT fathom why they were going there and NOT to Japan (and of course my mom's response was, "Well, this is the trip that came up...."  

My mom said that anyone who knew 3 words of English would try to talk to them.  And that when they got to Shanghai (which had formerly been an "international" city, and they got off the tour bus, people were just STARING.  She said it wasn't malevolent (although apparently it made some other people in the tour group very nervous) -- it was just that there was an entire generation in Shanghai who who had never seen Westerners before....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Misfit]

I put a bottle of Monteverde Rose Noir in an order to get to free shipping. 

[Ceramicist]

6 hours ago, JonSzanto said:

 

Oh, that sounds like a wonderful event - DO IT!

 

 

We made reservations! 

[JonSzanto]

4 hours ago, Ceramicist said:

We made reservations! 

 

Yay!!

[PithyProlix]

15 hours ago, JonSzanto said:

There was one small maker, who patterned all of his inks on various jazz recordings from the mid-century period, that had what looked like 50 or 60 bespoke inks.

 

Do you have any more information please? Name of the maker, etc.?

 

Hard bop - jazz of the mid-1950s to mid-1960s - is probably in my top three most-listened-to music genres. I'd probably buy any ink inspired by a Hank Mobley or Kenny Dorham album, even if it were a color I didn't like! The colors in the Blue Note album covers (especially those used to tint photos) designed by Reid Miles would make some great ink hues, I would think!

[PithyProlix]

On 11/18/2025 at 10:07 AM, JonSzanto said:

I don't know, I just picked them instinctively

 

On 11/18/2025 at 10:07 AM, JonSzanto said:

 

Wow - great instincts!

 

I couldn't find those particular Tsutaya x TAG Stationery collabs on the Tsutaya website nor could I find the TAG 'Nightingale' ink anywhere but perhaps I am just not searching correctly ...

(Was just in Taiwan just a few days ago and intended to go to Alishan but rain prompted a change of plans.)

[JonSzanto]

3 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

 

Do you have any more information please? Name of the maker, etc.?

 

Hard bop - jazz of the mid-1950s to mid-1960s - is probably in my top three most-listened-to music genres. I'd probably buy any ink inspired by a Hank Mobley or Kenny Dorham album, even if it were a color I didn't like! The colors in the Blue Note album covers (especially those used to tint photos) designed by Reid Miles would make some great ink hues, I would think!

 

Ok, so the fellow sells his ink as Ken's Night inks. The flyer, which listed about 80 inks, was in a combination of English and Japanese. It appears they might be in conjunction with, or made for him by Tono and Lims. While he introduced me to the inks by mentioning the earlier jazz (and he had some nice bop playing on a phonograph!), he also has musics from the 60s and 80s, popular artists. He also has a Spotify playlist of all the inks... (Ken's Night) but I dropped my account for reasons and didn't check it out. Hope this helps.

 

3 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

Wow - great instincts!

 

I couldn't find those particular Tsutaya x TAG Stationery collabs on the Tsutaya website nor could I find the TAG 'Nightingale' ink anywhere but perhaps I am just not searching correctly ...

(Was just in Taiwan just a few days ago and intended to go to Alishan but rain prompted a change of plans.)

 

Seriously, I found the Tsutaya inks just because we were browsing in the Ginza 6 store. Those two really caught my eye. As to the TAG 'Nightengale', I only knew about that because it was a TIPS exclusive (supposedly) that one of my friends from our local pen club asked me to get for them. I got a bottle myself, and you might find it with the Japanese name, "Uguisuiro".

[PithyProlix]

18 minutes ago, JonSzanto said:

Ken's Night inks

 

Ah - that's Ken Takeda, one of the world's most prolific ink collectors - he's as deep in ink as anyone. His online store is here: https://kensnight.shop-pro.jp/ It looks like the inks and their names are inspired by songs from the so-called Great American Songbook/American Standards. 

[JonSzanto]

@PithyProlix Thanks for the background. I only spent a couple of minutes talking to him as I didn't want to distract from his sales, and the show was pretty busy. I know he said he was deeply into this, and now I get it! Very nice fellow.