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My wife surprised me this morning by being the one to break the news to me that Pensive Pens is having a closing down sale, when she's an avid fountain pen user but not really a hobbyist, and she never shops for pens and inks since I do all the shopping and handling in that regard. So, following Pendamonium's closure only a couple of months ago, another Australian retailer known to the hobby scene bites the dust. Not much appears to be left to buy except for Pilot Iroshizuku inks. If you're after any of the three more recently released colours, the 50ml bottles are A$19 each. There are also some boxed sets with four 30ml bottles each in different colours. More than ever, at this point I probably wouldn't even bother with the “random” multi-packs of KWZ Ink and Robert Oster inks; the average per-bottle price isn't that good, and the remaining stock from which the packs would be “randomly” picked would probably be the least popular colours that Pensive Pens just couldn't sell on their own.

A Web search last night for which retailers still had bottles of Pilot Iroshizuku Ina-ho and/or Tsukushi — not that I really want more of the latter — somehow or other led me to Pendamonium, from which I've never ordered anything before, and in any case doesn't actually have those inks in stock. … or much else, for that matter, other than assorted Noodler's Ink colours and a couple of Waterman inks in bottles, all offered at nominally 50%. It was like walking into a store that is closing down and trying to sell off the last of the stock on hand, minus any crudely posted signs to signal to all that the end is nigh. The Noodler's Ink bottles, with the discount, are cheaper than I've ever seen them offered on Amazon.com.au. I put a few in the shopping cart, but encountered some weirdness for certain numbers/combinations of product that made the selection of shipping method disappear, effectively meaning that I could not complete the order at that point. It wasn't some straightforward sort of minimum set on the total order value, though; either taking one bottle off or adding another bottle made the delivery method selection available again. (Playing around with it some more just now, it appears that any combination of four items in the cart will trigger that strange condition.) Anyway, after mulling over it for about 24 hours, I finally went ahead and placed an order an hour ago. Only after payment was made, and the order was confirmed, was I notified (in the order confirmation email) that Pendamonium is in the throes of a “closing down sale” and, “stock will be removed from the site as it is sold out”. There are some 4.5oz bottles of X-Feather black, Heart of Darkness, and Lexington Gray at A$19.50 each. Most of the 3oz (or 90ml) bottles are $14.98 each, although Kung Te-Cheng and the series with the Russian names are priced a little higher. I guess I'll find out in a day or two whether Pendamonium can actually fulfil my order. Some of the product listings contain contradictory information between listing title and body, which does not give me too much confidence that the remaining listings are well-maintained and accurate. All of the items I ordered continue to appear in the online shop's catalogue and available to be added to the cart, when I tried just now; that may or may not mean the system does not keep an up-to-date stock count for each item that is automatically decreased as new orders are received.