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Higher cost inks- thoughts?


cougarking

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Just wonder what people thoughts are on the higher cost inks,  and benefits, are they ŵorth the cost.

 

do they make a great difference to the writing experience.


 

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What counts as “higher cost”? Are you talking about retail prices set by the manufacturer or official regional distributor, as opposed to street prices or effective prices at which one can pick the products up from time to time? Is “higher” strictly relative? Just about every ink in the market is “higher cost” than Chinese inks such as Hero 232, 233, and 234; do we need to assess every blue-black, blue, and black ink in the market against that benchmark as to what it offers functionally and qualitatively above what a Hero ink does, never mind matters of accessibility (including but not limited to taxes and shipping charges when importing from China/overseas), convenience, consumer confidence, or even just whether the products are known to the individual?

 

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Diamine ink cost less in the UK than it does in Asia.  Sailor inks cost more in Europe than they do in Japan.

 

I read reviews, and if the ink exhibits characteristics that please me I'll order a sample.  If it suits me I'll purchase. Some inexpensive, some costly; it evens out over time.

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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I was think towards the quality and writing experience of inks.

Pilot iroshizuku/ Montblanc compared to Waterman and Parker for example.

 

 

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19 minutes ago, cougarking said:

Pilot iroshizuku/ Montblanc compared to Waterman and Parker for example.

 

Ah, but that's the thing. You may be familiar with those brands, but as a philosophical discussion — and especially when you want to focus on the product quality and writing experience — low-cost inks such as any number of Chinese and Indian inks with which you're unfamiliar ought to be a better benchmark, to make sure you don't get to be biased by familiarity and ease of access in the market.

 

By the way, in my experience, Hero 232 Blue-Black iron-gall ink is a stellar performer, compared head-to-head with other (perhaps more) famous iron-gall blue-black inks such as Diamine Registrar's Ink and ESS Registrars Ink, and Hero ink is a lot cheaper on a per millilitre basis, if you don't allow yourself to factor in international shipping costs and/or difficulty in finding a local stockist.

 

I took some screenshots just now:

1157090416_CurrentpricesofHero232and234inksonAliExpress20221203.gif.1c33447f6f8df93a453999b24256176c.gif

to prove that Hero 232 and 234 inks are available to me (to be shipped to Sydney, Australia from China) at such low product prices. The shipping charges are higher than the bottle prices, but not completely unreasonable; I've deliberately pixelised the figure so that it cannot be part of the analysis, but I'll tell you it's a bit lower than US$10. It isn't worthwhile ordering just a single bottle, but there may be shipping options to make the apportioned shipping charges per bottle more palatable for a large(r) order.

 

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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4 hours ago, cougarking said:

I was think towards the quality and writing experience of inks.

 

And that, cougarbarking, is subjective.  Purchase  samples  and see what works for you in dependence upon pens/nibs and paper.

 

to add:

Brand X colour #9 can work wonderfully in this pen, but behave badly in that pen.  Is it a 'good' ink or a 'bad' ink?  Uhh yes!

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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I agree that the question is highly subjective and subject to location/retail prices.

 

For me, Montblanc ink is not an expensive ink. I can find it here (Europe) at prices similar to many non-EU inks, so far so that sometimes it is cheaper than a bottle of Noodler's. Rohrer und Klingner or Koh-i-Noor are also far cheaper than "imported" inks, sometimes by an exceeding margin (a bottle of Document KIN ink is about 5 EUR, vs anything between 15-75EUR a 3.5oz bottle of Noodler's). Diamine is cheap too (somewhat less so after Brexit).

 

The point is, from an EU-centric point of view, some inks are cheap that from an US-centered POV are higher cost. For me Montblanc Permanent Blue is a go-to must have ink, and Sailor inks are higher-cost. YMMV.

If you are to be ephemeral, leave a good scent.

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10 hours ago, cougarking said:


Just wonder what people thoughts are on the higher cost inks,  and benefits, are they ŵorth the cost.

 

do they make a great difference to the writing experience.


 

Some inks are expensive not because of the liquid but rather the container it comes in. Do you want fancy cut glass or cheap plastic?

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Generally when looking intra-brand, you have to pay more for shimmer, pigment particles, permanence, unusual characteristics, novel setups (weringeul)

 

Looking across brands, some have fancy bottles, fancy marketing, fancy themed sets. You may (hopefully) be paying for high quality control.

 

In America you can get a LOT of great ink at a good price. The rest is often about variety and novelty.

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7 minutes ago, dragondazd said:

In America

 

Not to forget Europe and Asia.

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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24 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

 

Not to forget Europe and Asia.

Likely, but I don't have the personal experience to confirm this. ;)

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I'm a value shopper in nearly every realm, including ink. 

 

I have a couple of more expensive inks like Emerald of Chivor if they really tickle my fancy, but overall it seems like the price of an ink doesn't have much to do with how well I will like it. 

 

I also love finding a cheap bottle of wine that punches above its weight. 

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Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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large.20221203_010.jpg.d304099abb7ffbd44e77da0c673ee0ba.jpg

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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As other point out, just because it costs more doesn't mean it performs better. If it's a color you like, reviews/users find it generally non-problematic and there are no similar, lower-cost alternatives, treat yo'self.

It's hard work to tell which is Old Harry when everybody's got boots on.

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On 12/3/2022 at 10:41 PM, cougarking said:

I was think towards the quality and writing experience of inks.

Pilot iroshizuku/ Montblanc compared to Waterman and Parker for example.

 

I've been mulling over, in the back of my mind, the question of how to tackle this without making market segmentation and product accessibility an issue, and also being able to either bridge or circumvent the seemingly unbreachable divide between the philosophical and the analytical approaches to considering the O.P.'s ‘query’.

 

What I suggest, is for @cougarking (and anyone else who is pondering the same closed yes-no question of, “Are they worth the cost?”) to:

 

  1. Identify four ink product lines (so, for example, not just Pilot as a brand, but Pilot Iroshizuku 50ml bottles, as a specific product line that excludes other Pilot inks, as well as the significantly higher-cost-per-millilitre 15ml bottles of the same liquid substances) that you would subjectively consider equivalently “higher cost” and that you would logically put in the same category, in the context of the question. (Never mind how much it costs in Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, US, or Zimbabwe, and how much a ‘smarter’ consumer in the same region as you, or a ‘luckier’ one who lives closer to the place of manufacture, may be able to source particular products more cheaply; let's cut that out of the ponderance completely.)

    For illustration only, let's say,
    i.     Pilot Iroshizuku 50ml bottles
    ii.    Graf von Faber-Castell 75ml bottles
    iii.  Ferris Wheel Press 85ml bottles (in which only the “Everyday Inks” are offered)
    iv. Colorverse “Season 1” (or any other Season) in 80ml (i.e. 65ml+15ml) retail packages
     
  2. Identify two colour families/ranges you would use, e.g. blue and brown.
     
  3. Buy eight bottles of “higher cost” ink, two from each brand being in those two colour ranges.
     
  4. Use them, and decide whether they all appeal to you as having such product quality and support such similar writing experiences so as to be equivalent to each other, and that you don't have any distinct subjective preferences or cannot tell them apart qualitatively between the brands and/or specific inks.

 

If there is no such logical equivalence or homogeneity, from your subjective point of view, in the single class of objects you're labelling “higher cost inks”, and that you indeed prefer, say, the Pilot Iroshizuku inks over the Ferris Wheel Press inks, then never mind comparing them against cheaper and/or more accessible inks, or what others think of those inks subjectively in terms of their quality and worth.

 

Just to be clear, the question is not, “Am I missing out on something (on which I don't want to knowingly miss out), if I don't spend $50 on two bottles of ink, but stick with cheaper and more accessible ink products in the market?” For starters, it was not the question posed; you find the answer to that question, not by asking others, but by spending the money first, and then evaluating from a basis of knowing. We as strangers do not know what you want, what you value, and of what you may be afraid of missing out; and, as fellow hobbyists, we probably do not care, since we are not also marketers trying to pry unwitting or grudging consumer spending out of you. What cheaper inks offer need not factor into the equation at all.

 

In fact, if it is possible for you to put a dollar value on the writing experience (so as to assess “worth”), then a $30 bottle of ink that delivers a $40-worth writing experience is by definition worth it, even if there are two $3 and $10 alternatives in the market that can also deliver $40-worth writing experiences; the question as posed is not a spend-optimisation exercise.

 

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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9 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

We as strangers do not know what you want, what you value, and of what you may be afraid of missing out

There.

 

The most we can do is point to our own experiences, but these may not apply to anybody else. My initial comment tried to highlight this: just because an ink is more expensive it does not mean it is not worth it. There may be other inks that are cheaper and better, or maybe not.

 

But since "cheaper" and "better" are personal, the best one can do is try and decide by oneself.

 

E.g. I mentioned Montblanc Permanent Blue. For me the permanence is an important criterion, there are not many good permanent blues, the hue is just the kind I like, it is stable, well behaved, and does not stain. By comparison, Koh-i-Noor Document blue is permanent, well behaved, but stains the sink like BSB, the hue changes with time in the pen (maybe due to oxidization?) from a vivid, pale blue to dark blue, and costs (here) 4-6 times less. I do have several bottles of KIN Doc Blue, but find myself preferring MB Perm Blue. When I don't care about the staining or enjoy the changes in hue (which I sometimes do), KIN Document Blue is a cheaper option. But that is just me.

 

You have to decide by yourself. Maybe try different ink samples and compare.

If you are to be ephemeral, leave a good scent.

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Bottom line, the inks that are higher priced are offering something different than other inks, if only that they are charging more for a different label. Almost all of that is worth something to someone, somewhere. 

 

Just as an example, Platinum made a special edition of their blue black specifically with a small percentage of the water in the ink sourced from Mount Fuji. The ink is otherwise identical, IIRC. Well, that silly little gimmick is worth something to me, because I like the Platinum brand and I like that ink. It's a fun oddity and is sort of "special" if only by virtue of the ink being labelled differently. That's worth something to me. 

 

So, cost of inks is almost never well correlated to objective performance across brands. Even very cost-conscious ink brands like Noodler's have inks that cost more but might objectively perform worse because it's the cost of components driving the price for them. Indeed, I might argue that some of the higher end inks from Noodler's are objectively worse for most people. That doesn't mean that they aren't exactly what someone else may want. Likewise, on some objective measures, the Herbin premium line of inks is very good, and *very* pricey. But one a number of common metrics, they are actually *worse* than their standard line. However, there are features in the Herbin line that you can't get from the standard line, and maybe that's worth something to you personally. 

 

Unfortunately, this means that you have to first establish exactly what you value in an ink, explore your set of options, and then do a price comparison and decide which one is the best for you. 

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An ink isn't necessarily better (for any given purpose or user) because it's more expensive. But if an ink that would suit you perfectly isn't a common one sold in high volume it may well command a higher price - and be worth it.

the cat half awake

and half sleeping on the book

"Quantum Mechanics"

 

(inspired by a German haiku by Tony Böhle)

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  • 2 weeks later...

My preferences suggest I don't correlate a higher price with higher quality, at all. Sometimes I like the look of a particularly expensive bottle aesthetically and consider buying an ink from the range because of it, only to be disappointed by the samples. 
 

I'd have to love an ink to spend $30+ on it, so I don't see it happening often. Inks under $20 I'm more included to buy without a sample, but that can be disappointing. When buying Diamine inks the cost is already as low as samples, which is why I own so very many of them!

 

The most expensive ink I'd buy again from my current collection is Montblanc Irish Green, when that bottle empties. Considering the comparatively low cost of ink compared to a nice meal, even if an ink cost $60 I wouldn't be bothered about the price if I liked it enough and thought I'd get some use from it.
 

 

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