Do you ever count your inks?

[Estycollector]

51 minutes ago, Mr. Pink said:

M collection is certainly not in the 100+ club, but never-the-less what I do have will way out last me.  The question is, what will happen to it after I tip over.  I don't have any young relatives who use a fountain pen.  And I have never seen used bottles of ink that were donated to thrift stored.  Does it all go down the drain?  I can see it now: a huge ink stain floating down the Mississippi River.  No matter, if I see an ink I just have to have (pink?), all the boaters on the river will just have to deal with it.  

You could give them now to some of those "young relatives" which would introduce them to fountain use. This was my pracice rom the beginning. I was restoring pre 1955 Esterbrooks for practice and giving them to friends and family. 

 

I suspect that my old pens were in somebodies junk drawer. 

 

Maybe Waterman chose to call their ink Florida Blue because of the retirees flushing their inks...LOL!!

[PAKMAN]

79 Bottles of Ink

69 Different Colors

[lapis]

Sure, I counted 'em. Even made an Excel table. Cuz I wanna sell 'em.

[Estycollector]

13 minutes ago, lapis said:

Sure, I counted 'em. Even made an Excel table. Cuz I wanna sell 'em.

Which means you over did it?

[lapis]

1 hour ago, Estycollector said:

Which means you over did it?

At least my wife and kids think so. I.e., when I kick the bucket, what to do with the ink?

[Cassotto]

I don't count them, but they have to fit in the single drawer I've got to keep my ink bottles in. And, after saying this, I must confess I think I've got four or five bottles on top of the table because there's not enough room in the drawer. I'd say I've got 30-40 at the moment. And I feel very guilty because I write so little that I won't have finished half of the bottles by the time I'm dead.

 

[Estycollector]

10 minutes ago, lapis said:

At least my wife and kids think so. I.e., when I kick the bucket, what to do with the ink?

Over accumulation is common for most all of the hobbies I am acquainted. There are probably ingredients that support this phenomenon. The solution is to give stuff away and stop the insanity. 🤣

[Pen Ffynnon]

On 3/28/2025 at 4:23 PM, Penguincollector said:

  I’ll take you up on that! It has to be a swap, though.  Closer to July, I will message you said ink library list and you can choose which ones you want to try. 

Sounds good! I can send you a list of what I have.

[RJS]

Nope, never have. I have bottles spread across homes in the UK and Germany, and a box tucked somewhere which I haven't seen for a few years. I might struggle to correctly guess to the nearest 50.

[lamarax]

99 bottles of ink on the wall, 99 bottles of ink.
Take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of ink on the wall.

 

 

No more bottles of ink on the wall, no more bottles of ink.
Go to the store and buy some more, 99 bottles of ink on the wall.

 

😃

 

[inkstainedruth]

Good one, lamarax!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[SashK]

Well, yes I've thought about doing that lots of times! 

 

I'm easily in the 100+ Club but I'm always putting it off. I do want to offload a few but I would like to get a bottle count before then. 

 

I've run out of drawers at this point so I don't want to guesstimate the true count. But I do want to know...

 

And this is how I end up not counting. (am I over 300?)

[Pen Ffynnon]

On 3/31/2025 at 6:42 PM, lamarax said:

99 bottles of ink on the wall, 99 bottles of ink.
Take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of ink on the wall.🤣😂😂

 

 

No more bottles of ink on the wall, no more bottles of ink.
Go to the store and buy some more, 99 bottles of ink on the wall.

 

😃

 

🤣🤣😂

[Sailor Kenshin]

No, I do not count my ink bottles.  It would force me to lie down with a cold rag on my head.

[bugsydog55]

I haven't counted in a several years but I know I am in the range Of Dill with several hundred bottles, heavy on the several.  A part of that is due to a desire to collect certain shades of colors that have more appeal.  There is also a huge selection of black inks from almost everywhere.  It's become a passion of mine and I enjoy the daylights out it.  Throw in the explosion of color choices over the last decade and it doesn't take long to accumulate a massive stockpile.  I have it in a couple of cabinets and a work area that I rotate through along with the insane number of pens to go with all of this ink.  The question of why I have all of this ink when I can't possibly use it is the wrong approach.  I have these things because it's a part of my life and I choose to spend my time with it.  Just as any other hobbyist, or any other person out there with a passion for the things they do, having this and using this adds great value to my life.  Being almost 70, I am currently working out a plan to see where all of this can go once i am gone.  Considering all things, if there is no real interest in the family, then off to a school or library it all will go.  Regardless of that, every little bit of it will have been worth the cost.  Just getting my 2 cents in.  Didn't want to get all fussy.

[torstar]

Nope.  Opened a box in my storage locker and it had 24 bottles of ink I had forgotten about.  Some good stuff I was happy to make reacquantainces with.

 

[TSherbs]

yes, when I had fewer

 

But since the number is now over 35, I stopped counting and nearly entirely stopped buying (one 50ml bottle in last 12 months). Doesn't really matter to me.

[senzen]

45 inks, most with at least two bottles.

[midnightblues]

checks spreadsheet

 

190. Not too bad as quite a lot of those are teeny bottles, like 10ml Herbins and 30ml Diamines. I really have to stop buying teal inks though. I am helpless in the presence of a good teal. I also seem to have an alarming amount of blues, but I suppose it's sort of inevitable. The one colour I don't have a lot of is black. I have HOD, mainly for bujo, Take-sumi and Carbon Black, and a few black-adjacent Diamines.

[es9]

Exactly 6… because why buy inks when you can buy pens? 

1. Diamine Earl Grey (my all around favorite) 
2. Diamine 1864 Blue Black (my favorite blue black)
3. J Herbin Vert de Gris (a recent acquisition… pretty cool ink)
4. KWZ Blue Black (my only IG ink) 
5. Waterman Mysterious Blue (for pens that require a delicate diet) 
6. Waterman Serenity Blue (mostly for testing)