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Introduction and Elephant in the room First paragraph same as Taccia cha so ignore if aware (info on bottle if interested). First let me take a moment to address the elephant in the room, box and bottle. Bottle has big mouth for any pens is no issues with filling, but then when ink is low might not be easy to get last drops of ink...I can’t be sure cos I cannot see any mechanism to help here..still a nice bottle overall. Box is not paper like most inks (not 100% at least) it sure does not feel like one, more durable and stronger with inside fins designed to keep ink from moving around and requires some effort to open as the top acts like a lock (its not hard just not too easy either basically the box does what box should do protect the ink)...not bad considering my waterman came out of box during shipping. Gotta love the warning labels, only for writing purpose...makes me want to draw always, and this one is quite good for that. Ink Review Section test papers 100 GSM JK cedar 75 GSM Spectra copy paper 52 and 57 GSM classmate registers. (52 GSM showed dot bleed) 70 and 80GSM Nightingale papers Cheap random registers and papers. GSM is well suspense at best, most likely 40 ish. Nature of ink the colors are off here and they are lighter in real life, my pea shooter camera is unable to pick it, close up shots will be added for actual color reference. A close up with better look at color, golden here is quite visible and is quite accurate. Dry Time- 8 to 25 sec on some papers, not 20 sec had to clear this one. Saturation- good Bleed- very slight on cheap papers and dot bleeds on 52 GSM classmate A decent bleed when closed in, done on 52 GSM classmate paper. Its not as bad as pic might make it seem, entire 'S' and 'C' for reference is ghosting and bleed is only considerable on 'T' and 'H' corners where first line of 'H' is again ghosting. This is also area where shade is high, more on this later. Feathering- very slight wool-ish on papers with high absorbent nature, present on shade area. Smudges-none at least by finger. Lubrication-great Ghosting (show-through)- none on most papers apart from cheap guys....and where it bled... Flow- good. Wet/Dry- Its balanced ink but very close to wet nature so much so that it might feel wet to some, mostly due to shading points where ink is present on page more then usual. Shading- quite high. this pic also has better color visible for the ink. Shading is quite high here and its these parts that show any sign of bleed on real cheap papers. Water resistance- none.. Cleaning- Easy clean with water. Personal take on ink I decided to separate this part as it varies from people to people and might not be interesting for some who just need quick info on ink, I intend to do same for any review I write, whenever I write. Anyway lets go. The ink does show a very nice dark golden brown color to it and the addition of shading was very welcome for me. The test pen Lamy Safari sees no issue of flow or hard starts and I don’t think there will be any either seeing how ink behaves. The picture of wheat fields might be little too much as from what I remember wheat fields are more golden in sunlight, but depends on light really so they are sorta right....they do miss mark there. Funny part aside, ink is really great and shows great golden color with lots of shading of dark brown color which is almost black making entire write up look different in good ways. The color I feel will be liked by most, its lighter then in pics abid by very small margin. No water resistance is a bummer but again taccia themselves say there is none so no big deal for me. The bleed which I see is mostly on places where there is more ink deposit for shading that ink gives, this also means that a quick writing with no pen lift will give only golden color with no shades, not happens in real world so shade will be seen and even when speed is fallen the shades tends to give in, as seen in small write up below. Speed writing reduces the shade to some extent but do not eliminate them, all in all shade is high as seen on Fine nibs and will be visible on most cases. I tried to write in continuous flow without lifting pen, made multi strokes on same line and slow speed due to not in habit of doing so made result look more or less same as normal😅 the upper paragraph show quite accurate color of ink when written on fast pace as done above. Conclusion I have not tried it yet but using flex nibs should give some beautiful results (my flex is currently filled with waterman serenity blue ink). All in all its very nice ink and I like it both for behaviour and color. Go ahead give it a go, you will like it for sure and costs of Rs 940 or 12-ish dollars plus shipping for 40ml.

In the end I won't be getting the Honey, it doesn't seem to be different enough to me.

As you may know, Sailor makes custom inks for shops in Japan. Kingdom Note is one such shop in Tokyo. They have started a series this year based on the famous early 11th century Japanese novel Tale of Genji. The usual series of KN inks comprise five inks, but this series already has eight inks. It's unknown how many inks are planned, or how long they'll be available. Perhaps someone in Japan has inquired about these matters and could comment. This is a golden brown ink named Monogatari which is according to Wiki a traditional Japanese literary form in which the Tale of Genji was written. The translation of the Japanese by Google on the page for this ink is quite confusing, and it's very unclear what the underlying meaning for this ink might be. I think the iPhone7 made the ink appear a bit darker than it is in reality. It's a little darker than Sailor Ishida Bungu Hakodate Curry and Sailor Maruzen Athena Fukurou, brighter but nearly the same value as Noodler's (FPH) Old Dutch Colony Sepia. The ink has very nice shading, no sheen that I can see, some water resistance. No staining at all on the Pelikan. Excellent handling as expected from Sailor. Many browns fall into the red-brown range so it's nice to see a golden brown. This is one that is fairly golden, but not yellow. Quite readable. For some reason we get pretty accurate color here...

Here is a review of one of the rare Sailor inks for the Ishida Bungu shop on Hokkaido, Japan. The ink refers to a famous curry served up at a local curry house of long standing. The coloring of the ink is really great. Reviewed on Mohawk via Linen, Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, and Tomoe River papers. I seem to have lost my waterfastness test sheet, which it must surely be around somewhere, but not available when I want to photograph it. This ink is one of the most washed away by water that I've encountered in my tests. There was some bleed through here, but only where I had hammered the color on the previous side.

Hi everyone, I am looking for a gold toned ink that won't be too light on paper. I have seen someone using a nice golden metallic-looking ink but I wasn't courageous enough to ask I have seen the swatches for golden brown by Noodler's and Diamine and love these colors! But I was wondering if you could recommend some gold inks that are not so brown, and maybe easily available? Any thoughts? Thanks!

Hello. I need a little help please, pinning-down a particular swap from a Diamine brown(ish). I found it in a general Diamine search. I want a lighter, almost dark amber vs. my beloved darker, MB Toffee Brown...Nothing with a reddish tone. Too many of these already. This color reminds me of old 19th century documents which is what I want.This swab was def. Diam., but had no tag. I've looked at other Diam. images I have and need to identify this one. Their swab is distinctive... I'm thinking this is the one for me. My guesses: Diamine-Ochre, sepia, golden brown, raw sienna ? Any thoughts please from more seasoned eyes would be most helpful. Thanks, LeRoy

I have a very dear friend whom I only get to see about once a year, because we live a continent apart. We swap gifts when we see each other - he's an ex-pat Brit who misses certain snack foods from the Motherland, and I'm a pen geek. We're meeting up in a week or so when I'm over for work, and he just sent me a photo of something he's bought for me in response to my wittering about my favourite flexy old Waterman via email. Note excellent choice for flexy shading. I will be filling my entire duty-free allowance with Scotch whisky to say thankyou.

Black Swan in Australian Roses and Private Reserve Naples Blue were both thinned 50%.

In a panicked, nervous state and unable to sleep, I thought I'd calm myself by trying out a few pens. I've been torn with the idea of which pens I want to keep and which I want to sell. I have a few vintage pens and though they are all nice in their own ways, I've been looking for a low cost, high quality way of getting the most out of the inks I love. I like an ink that gives strong shading characteristics. So, the ideal pen for me is a flex pen that actually doesn't write too wetly. My Noodler's Ahab (which I've modified as described here) gives nice flex, but it doesn't really "do" anything like hairlines, returns are a bit slow for my tastes, and it writes so wetly that you don't get a chance to really do any shading. You just get a fat, wet line. Anyhow, these are 5 different samples I did with Noodler's Golden Brown (sample 1 must have had a little leftover blue in it). I'd like to know what you think of each pen and why specifically. Note: Please excuse the overall sad quality of the scan and the handwriting. This is my first post! I think I'll take a note from everybody else and just do a photograph in the future for this sort of thing.