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I have a bottle of Noodler's black that I sometimes dump other inks(mostly other black inks) into from converters and such when I change inks. Inks like Parker Quink, Noodler's red black, Pelican black, etc. This black ink has developed a strange but pleasant floral smell. I'll call this black, floral black. I've used this ink for a few years like this with no problems. No mold, sludge, discoloration or anything besides the floral smell. It's a very well behaved ink. Recently I've been dumping off blue-red inks into a small amount of distilled water from ink changes. The inks have been Noodler's Navajo Turquoise and Plains of Abraham, Namiki Blue, Sheaffer turquoise and red, generic magenta printer ink, and PR plum. At first, it also developed the same floral smell as floral black but lately it had also developed a strong corn smell. Like the smell you get from opening a fresh can of corn along with the original floral smell. The smell is far too pungent though, unlike floral black. This I'll call corny blue also no problems with mold, sludge, sediment etc. I haven't inked a pen with it and I don't know if I should. Neither corny blue or floral black have have any trace of "mold-like" smells. Just incase it was mold I added a small amount of benzalkonium chloride to each but it smells the same. I'm thinking it might be a chemical reaction instead of something biological. Does anyone know why these might be like this? Should I just throw away corny blue?

I have happened across, what I have discovered to be a #35 Lucky Curve, with gold-plated floral relief. I have been unable to find its orginal cost and have only been able to find pictures of it (fortunately!), to determine what it is. It was purchased in 1907, as indicated by the engraving on the indecia states: "Glennie Biggs Feb 12, 07". I have not been able to find any relevant current values, despite it, on other sites, being referred to as "very rare". The nib is broken but other than that the pen has very little wear. Kind people please help me!

My latest ink is Diamine Gerbera from the Flowers Set. I decided I should try to complete reviewing the Flower set inks, as I have reviewed all of the Music set inks. I find the Flowers set consists of brightly coloured inks whereas the Music set are more muted. So maybe I'm not always in the mood to write with brightly coloured inks. I decided to use Diamine Pumpkin, Caran d'Ache Infra Red and Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-gaki as my comparison inks this time. Gerbera is a pinkish orangey shade, Pumpkin is bright orange, Caran d'Ache Infra Red is a pinkish scarlet red, and Pilot iroshizuku Fuyu-gakei is a salmon colour, unfortunately one that didn't come out as well on my scan as the others. I cleaned out and refilled my orange Lamy Nexx M with it's 1.1mm nib for Gerbera, but I immediately found the ink dryer than Pumpkin. It didn't glisten and flow along the line while I was writing as Pumpkin did, and I felt like I had to work a little harder to write than I had with that orange ink. I was quite surprised at the difference. Maybe it needs a wetter pen? It's a nice colour though. Not saturated. I know some like less saturated inks. It's certainly easier on the eye than Pumpkin. It also has some rather nice shading. Although this isn't a waterproof ink, it shows a little water resistance for a relatively unsaturated ink.Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny surface, and I used a 1.1 stub nib, this ink took 16-18 secs to dry.I found this ink a bit on the dry side in this particular pen. However, I saw no skips or hard starts while I did swabs and dry time tests.It is currently available in 30ml glass bottles within the Flowers gift set, or in 30ml plastic refill bottles from Diamine.Diamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.

I have it on good authority (from Diamine today) that they have just started to sell refill 30ml bottles from both Gift Sets (musicians and flowers) separately at GB£4.03 each. Unfortunately these aren't the glass bottles like those in the sets, they are the ordinary plastic Diamine 30ml bottles. So to those of you who have sets with a favourite ink in, I suggest you keep your glass bottles for refilling. If you're in the UK you currently need to phone and place your order. You can still pay through PayPal If you're in the US I suggest you send them an email and ask how to order.