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Earlier last year (2016) I purchased from Australia, hereafter referred to as Oz, several of the new Bookbinder's inks. For those in America, Anderson Pens has been carrying these inks. They come packaged in a little hemp bag, like some snake handler in the Outback might use for trapping and transporting some serpent. The labels are very nicely done. The bottles are glass, 30 ml. So perhaps a bit small if you like the ink quite a lot, and there are some that have much to recommend them. The Blue Coral is one of those inks. It is a lighter blue, fairly bright but not retina-searing, that is not turquoise. It is actually quite nice. visvamitra has reviewed this ink — twice — and did not have great experiences due to flow issues and hard starts. I did not have these problems, but I did notice some precipitation especially when I emptied my pen. I don't believe it was SITB. The ink acts similar to some of the powder-based dyes inks some of us tested of the early Blackstone experiments. The shading is really nice, no sheen observed at all. I didn't have problems in flow, but sometimes I needed to nudge the converter piston to make sure the ink flowed into the feed when that acted like it was "running out of ink". Other inks, depending on the pen (I'm thinking of you my beloved little Aurora), need to have this treatment so I don't consider this a fatal flaw, but an annoyance. I tend not to leave pens unused as I prefer to have fewer pens inked and use them regularly than many pens used sparingly. Perhaps this is one of those "shake the bottle like you mean it" inks. Again, I have the first version of this ink. If you are in Oz, you'll probably get something much more current. My guess is Anderson Pens also has fresher ink. If you like the color I encourage you to add a sample to your cart to give it a go, see if it works for you. My pens will definitely get seeing this ink again. btw, the ink is not dry in its flow, fairly decent, also quite fast drying on some papers. Very nice shading on the better papers. Some water resistance but that's not really an advertised feature. According to the Anderson website, these inks are mixable with one another. I'm not a mixer, but for those into that will find these inks suitable for your creating your own unique color(s). Pen: Edison Premiere (F-steel) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory. Camera: iPhone 7

I originally wrote this review back in March last year, but could never get the color right. Recently I reshot the images with the new iPhone and the color is much better. So without further ado, a belated review. I remember really liking the ink, it was quite wet, and a dark black. In going over my original writings on this ink I discovered I found lots of problems with hard starts. The particular pen used in this review usually doesn't have such problems. Pen: Edison Collier (F-steel) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory. Camera: iPhone 7 Water resistant? Fuggedaboutit. Spreads, seeps into the back of the paper.

As I've mentioned previously, I bought this ink almost a year ago. This snake ink is actually quite nice, and has very good shading on better papers. The dry times are quite reasonable. The color blot is very interesting. I actually like this ink and will have to give it a try in a wetter pen. No sheen. Definitely worth giving a try. Pen: Aurora Ipsilon Deluxe (M-14kt) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory. Camera: iPhone 7 Sorry, Eastern Brown, not Eastern Coral.

A while back an inky FPN friend sent me some inks, this being one. Only now am I getting to trying it and reviewing it. This is a fairly light, but bright ink. The Bookbinder's inks are out of Australia. They come in small bottles in a little burlap style sack. It's quite cute. Some of the inks seem decent. This one isn't for me, but it's fairly shady, fairly bright. I personally would like to see an ink with more oomph but everybody has their own preferences. The ink felt "dry" to me in its flow, and so my medium nib felt like a fine. So a wide, wet nib is called for I think. Apparently Anderson Pens is their exclusive distributor in the US. Not sure how widely available they are Down Under or whether you have to visit their shop. I think the sample sent to me was from their first batch or release, so perhaps a sample is worthwhile to gauge your interest. Pen: Edison Premiere (M-steel) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory. Camera: iPhone 7 It's not water resistant at all. This has an interesting dye mix. The image makes it look a bit richer than it is. More dye in the mix would improve this I think.

Bookbinders is an Australian online store that creators claim to be “on a relentless quest in search of products that will fire the imagination of the 21st century writer”. There mauy be something to their words – the company presents their products in attractive and inspiring way. Some time ago Bookbinders started yo offer Snake Ink to their customers. The ink is sold in 30 ml bottles inspired in design “by the wily snake oil salesmen of the early 1900’s, and in colour by the beautiful and dangerous snakes of the world”. Snake Ink is available in 5 different colours. The samples of three new inks were send to me by mmg122 – thank you ! Blue Coral (blue), Blue Coral revisited Blue Racer Eastern Brown (brown) Emerald Boa (green) Everglades Ratsnake (orange) Ground Rattler Red-belly Black (black) Red Spitting Cobra You can read about Red Spitting Cobra snake here: Red Spitting Cobra ink didn’t impress me. The ink behaves well – it won’t cause feathering or bleedthrough. It offers no water resistance. The color is subtle (politically correct word for unsaturated) and, for me, boring and uninspiring. It feels dry in the nib, even my broad Kaweco nib didn’t glide across the page which is rare. If you enjoy Dirty Mauve it may have some appeal to you yhough. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Software ID Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Leuchtturm 1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Lyreco, Waterman Kultur, medium nib Oxford, Hero 5028, stub 1,9 Comparison

Bookbinders is an Australian online store that creators claim to be “on a relentless quest in search of products that will fire the imagination of the 21st century writer”. There mauy be something to their words – the company presents their products in attractive and inspiring way. Some time ago Bookbinders started yo offer Snake Ink to their customers. The ink is sold in 30 ml bottles inspired in design “by the wily snake oil salesmen of the early 1900’s, and in colour by the beautiful and dangerous snakes of the world”. Snake Ink is available in 5 different colours. The samples of three new inks were send to me by mmg122 – thank you ! Blue Coral (blue), Blue Coral revisited Blue Racer Eastern Brown (brown) Emerald Boa (green) Everglades Ratsnake (orange) Ground Rattler Red-belly Black (black) Red Spitting Cobra You can read about Blue Rcaer snake here: Blue Racer ink can be described as something in between blue and blue / black. I don’t think it’s true blue black – it’s too light. The ink behaves well but not spectacular – in regular nib (Delta Stantuffo) it feels dry and lacks lubrication. If you enjoy the feel of writing with Sailor inks or Noodler’s Eel inks this one will disappoint you. I haven’t experienced any feathering or bleedthrough even on cheaper papers. That’s a plus. Blue Racer shows zero water-resistance. It tends to offer some shading. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Software ID Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Leuchtturm 1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Lyreco, Waterman Kultur, medium nib Copy paper, Waterman Kultur, medium nib Oxford, Hero 5028, stub 1,9 Water resistance Comparison

Bookbinder's is an Australian online store that creators claim to be “on a relentless quest in search of products that will fire the imagination of the 21st century writer”. There mauy be something to their words – the company presents their products in attractive and inspiring way. Some time ago Bookbinders started yo offer Snake Ink to their customers. The ink is sold in 30 ml bottles inspired in design “by the wily snake oil salesmen of the early 1900’s, and in colour by the beautiful and dangerous snakes of the world”. Snake Ink is available in 8 different colours. The samples of three new colors were send to me by MMG122 – thank you Mary! Blue Coral (blue), Blue Coral revisited Blue racer Eastern Brown (brown) Emerald Boa (green) Everglades Ratsnake (orange) Ground Rattler Red-belly Black (black) Red Spitting Cobra Ground Rattler has striking appearance: Ground Rattler ink can be described as averagely saturated. It regular nib (Waterman Kultur) it feels dry and writing with it can’t be described as pleasurable. The pen tends to dry out after a day of break and you need to spend a while before it’ll begin to write. On the other hand when I left the pen uncapped for a minute everything was fine. The saturation is average at best. If however, like me, you use mainly crazy wet broad nibs the effect will be somewhat more interesting but still not exciting. The ink shouldn’t cause bleedthrough and I haven’t experienced feathering. It’s not water resistant. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Software ID Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Leuchtturm 1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Lyreco, Waterman Kultur, medium nib Copy paper, Waterman Kultur, medium nib Oxford, Hero 5028, stub 1,9 Water resistance Comparison

A while ago I've reviewed Bookbinders Blue Coral Snake Ink. The sample I've received was unusable - it contained some sediment and because of oily consistency it wouldn't flow at all in any of the pens I've risked to fill with it. My review wasn't - as you may guess and see - favorable. Actually I warned others against using this ink. After I've published the review folks from Bookbinders contacted me and offered to send me a bottle of Blue Coral Snake ink so that I could test it once again in any way imaginable. I've received the ink two weeks ago and I'm ready to share my thoughts on the experience. It won't be muy typical image-dominated review. I want to describe precisely my experience. Customer Service I don't know many companies interested that much in anonymous reviewers opiniomns and thoughts. Of course FPN is big and significant source of information about fountain pens and inks and each maker should take a look at it from time to time. Bookbinders is small business, I do understand that negative reviews can be harmful to their development. Still I appreciate their willingness to communicate and to offeir their product to discriminate customer and his tests. Guys - you rock and your customer service is stellar! Packaging The packaging and care for detail are fantastic. The bottle isn't made of premium glass and can't be discribed as work of art. It's small, simple and made of rather cheap glass. However Bookbinder's managed to make it look great by vintage label and fabriccover offered with their inks. Believe me - in person it looks even better than on great photos seen on Bookbinders website. Test After I've received the ink I've filled five pens (actually six) with this ink. Here they are - pieces from different price/quality segments. Left to right: Graf von Faber-Castell Tamitio( , Caran d'Ache Leman (B grinded to stub), Pilot CH 92 (M), Jinhao 599 (F/M), FPR Dilhi (F/M) On first two days I used every single pen. On third day I started to use only one of them daily and then I've left the pens unused, posted in the drawer. I've tried them on variety od papers. I'll start with positives. The ink doesn't feather. It doesn't cause bleedthrough. It has reasonable drying time. All of that when it happens to write. Sadly oftentimes it doesn't. Blue Coral Snake ink dries out very fast and caused hard start in every single pen I've uesd. After two days of not using the pen only Pilot CH 92 started immediately. Three pens didn't write at all - I had to soak them in water. FPR Dilhi started after two minutes of scratching the paper but the flow wasn't good. This ink cuases strong clogging - probably because of it being prone to cause precipitation. Some sediment is seen on the bottle: And on the feeds (here GvFC Tamitio) Conclusion Sadly I didn't change my mind. I can't recommend this ink to anyone. The color has potential, some properties are nice but good flow is my priority. I believe that inks that clog pens are a waste of time and money. I don't want to clean pen every day or to soak the nib in water before I'll be able to enjoy the color. I want the ink to flow well immediatelly. Sure - after a month in unused pens I would expect dome hard starts. But not after a day or two. I'm sorry guys - I wanted this review to be positive because of your generosity and great communication. But it won't. In my opinion Blue Coral Snake has potential but it needs to be reformulated so that it doesn't precipitate too soon or leave sediment. And now writing samples: Lyreco Budget 60g - Pilot CH92, M Moleskine - Pilot CH92, M and Jinhao 599, Kaweco Sport broad nib below Oxford notebook Graf von Faber-CVastell Tamitio, B Tomoe River Rhodia - FPR Dilhi Rhodia - Jinhao 599 Rhodia - GvFC Tamitio, B Ink splash (some sediment visible) Ink on kitchen towel

Bookbinders is an Australian online store that creators claim to be "on a relentless quest in search of products that will fire the imagination of the 21st century writer". There mauy be something to their words - the company presents their products in attractive and inspiring way. Some time ago Bookbinders started yo offer Snake Ink to their customers. The ink is sold in 30 ml bottles inspired in design "by the wily snake oil salesmen of the early 1900’s, and in colour by the beautiful and dangerous snakes of the world". Snake Ink is available in 5 different colours. The samples of all of them were send to me by webgeckos - thank you Penny! Blue Coral (blue) Eastern Brown (brown) Emerald Boa (green) Everglades Ratsnake (orange) Red-belly Black (black) Blue Coral Snake looks nice. Everglades Ratsnake ink could be quite nice if only it would write at all. Sadly the content of my sample turned into some kind of oily slime and it didn't flow in any pen. Basically no pen filled with this ink would write. Null. Zero. The ink stays in cartridge or converter. I've made writing samples by dipping the pen in the ink. I'm not sure what happened to the sample or is it the ink "normal" behaviour but after this experience I would never put this ink into a pen. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Software ID Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Leuchtturm1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, B

Bookbinders is an Australian online store that creators claim to be "on a relentless quest in search of products that will fire the imagination of the 21st century writer". There may be something to their words - the company presents their products in attractive and inspiring way. Some time ago Bookbinders started to offer Snake Ink to their customers. The ink is sold in 30 ml bottles inspired in design "by the wily snake oil salesmen of the early 1900’s, and in colour by the beautiful and dangerous snakes of the world". Snake Ink is available in 5 different colours. The samples of all of them were send to me by webgeckos - thank you Penny! Blue Coral (blue) Eastern Brown (brown) Emerald Boa (green) Everglades Ratsnake (orange) Red-belly Black (black) Emerald Boa snake has striking appearance Emerald Boa green ink looks good and fresh. I think it's my favourite in the series. There was no issues with it - the flow is good, it doesn'tcause any feathering or bleedthrough. Well done guys. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Software ID Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Leuchtturm1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Oxford, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Comparison

Bookbinders is an Australian online store that creators claim to be "on a relentless quest in search of products that will fire the imagination of the 21st century writer". There may be something to their words - the company presents their products in attractive and inspiring way. Some time ago Bookbinders started to offer Snake Ink to their customers. The ink is sold in 30 ml bottles inspired in design "by the wily snake oil salesmen of the early 1900’s, and in colour by the beautiful and dangerous snakes of the world". Snake Ink is available in 5 different colours. The samples of all of them were send to me by webgeckos - thank you Penny! Blue Coral (blue) Eastern Brown (brown) Emerald Boa (green) Everglades Ratsnake (orange) Red-belly Black (black)If you're interested learn more about Easter Brown Snake here. Eastern Brown Snake ink is well behaved and I rather enjoy the shading. Good stuff. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Software ID Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Leuchtturm1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Oxford, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Comparison

Through an ad on FPN, I stumbled onto Bookbinders Snake Inks. Bookbinders is a small stationary store in Melbourne, Australia, established in 2013. They are very active on Instagram. And as their name suggests, they come at stationary and inks from a book binder's approach. Many of their notebooks are hand made, and feature beautiful letterpress work. I have been busy on another intense project, so this is only the briefest of peaks at three inks. The Snake range of inks are all named and color sampled from various snakes from around the world. The bottles are heavy glass, with a tin cap which is rather tall and sturdy. And each bottle comes snuggled inside a brown hessian bag. (images from Bookbinder's site.) http://i.imgur.com/te8cI6C.png?1 http://i.imgur.com/rmUlnWs.png?1 This is the quick peak at Everglades Ratsnake, a pleasing solid orange. It was neither murky nor too bright and retina searing. It is a wet ink, with medium shading, no sheen. It is well-lubricated and glided beautifully across the page. On Tomoe River and a Med. Italic stub it still dried in under 10 seconds. http://i.imgur.com/epxs4qS.png The next quick peak was with Emerald Boa. I am not a big lover of green inks, but I found this rather charming, and very much it reminded me of spring sweet pea vines curling away. This is a light ink, rather wet. It is highly shaded. If you are a lover of green and have the winter blues, this is the ink for you. http://i.imgur.com/at5ZjuQ.png Lastly, the Blue Coral. This ink has a light red sheen. Be warned it is very wet. Very, very wet. At my elevation it bleed in shipping but that sometimes happens with ink coming from sea level to 5,500' where I live. I have heard from some friends that they actually had this ink feather and bleed on Tomoe River. So use caution. Blue Coral is a lovely deep blue, with hints of red sheen. The lighter shades are turquoise and the deeper shades a stout Cerulean. It is highly saturated, well lubricated and an extremely wet ink. Although I had no issues with feathering on Tomoe River, I was using a Shaeffer Javelin Artified Stub, which can handle wet inks just fine.I really wouldn't want to put this into a wet writer that was a broad stub. http://i.imgur.com/rCiPV1K.png I enjoyed playing with these three. I haven't had a chance to ink up the Red-belly Black or Eastern Brown, but I will add them to this when I get a chance. I did order a set of all five, as well as a dozen of their wire-bound Tomoe River notebooks as a group buy for the (P)inksters. Ink samples and notebooks have been sent out, and I am sure you will soon see proper reviews posted. My integrity requires I inform you the that we received a discount on the inks and tablets so everyone is aware of this fact upfront; however, I passed out the samples to other (P)inksters at no cost to them but shipping. I was pleased to see Bookbinders has initiated a Group Buy program, wherein they will ship orders of AUS $100 worldwide for no shipping costs, which makes ordering their products affordable for non-Aussies.

Bookbinders is an Australian online store that creators claim to be "on a relentless quest in search of products that will fire the imagination of the 21st century writer". There mauy be something to their words - the company presents their products in attractive and inspiring way. Some time ago Bookbinders started yo offer Snake Ink to their customers. The ink is sold in 30 ml bottles inspired in design "by the wily snake oil salesmen of the early 1900’s, and in colour by the beautiful and dangerous snakes of the world". Snake Ink is available in 5 different colours. The samples of all of them were send to me by webgeckos - thank you Penny! Blue Coral (blue) Eastern Brown (brown) Emerald Boa (green) Everglades Ratsnake (orange) Red-belly Black (black)Everglades Ratsnake has striking appearance: Everglades Ratsnake Ink looks really nice but not as nice as the snake itself. The flow is good and it offers nice and rich shading. I enjoy this one. I could use it. Drops of ink on kitchen towel Software ID Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Leuchtturm1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Oxford, Kaweco Classic Sport, B Comparison