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Of which categories of ink are samples more useful, specifically when the samples on offer are small? I've been mulling over this question for a while, primarily for the purpose of deciding of which of the 200+ commercially available inks I have here I will offer samples as giveaways to fellow enthusiasts, but since I personally don't request, acquire or use ink samples, I can't really answer it myself. So, I'd like to solicit your opinions. Just to be clear, I don't mean that question in a completely open-ended way. Let's assume the format is fixed If every enthusiast of fountain pen inks used pens that took international standard cartridges, ideally I'd be able to offer one international standard short cartridge as a sample of a particular ink, with which a pen user can perform tests to suit his/her product information discovery needs, and close the gap between what the ink manufacturer has published and what he/she really wants to know about the ink, before he/she is prepared to buy a bottle and deploy it in actual use. Of course, I'm not blaming ink manufacturers for the information gap, when no manufacturer can pre-empt every combination of pen, nib, paper, environment and application, to which some individual consumer may want to put a particular ink. It's not up to anyone else to know or find out whether the particular ink will stain some particular part of Sam's prized vintage piston-filler, should the ink be left in the barrel for three months with sporadic usage. Anyway, I've settled on providing 0.7-0.75ml samples of inks in resealable 1.5ml centrifuge tubes, which aren't designed to last long-term (e.g. the plastic hinge on the lid will probably snap after several openings and closings), along with either 0.5ml disposable pipettes or 1ml syringes with blunt-tip 14-gauge plastic needles, so that the equivalent volume of ink as in an international standard short cartridge can be easily transferred into whichever brand of converter, or an emptied old cartridge, or the barrel of an eyedropper pen, and even some piston-fillers with nib units that can be easily screwed out to access the cavity of the ink reservoir. Let's assume the volume per sample is not negotiable I personally see no need for 2ml, much less 4ml or 5ml, of a particular ink on which to perform the necessary testing, before someone can decide whether further investment is warranted, or for the ink to be summarily rejected as a prospective candidate for purchase and use. It isn't really worthwhile to send just (one ink cartridge or) one 0.7ml ink sample in the letter post, so I'm happy to put together ink sampler sets with such samples of five or more different inks, if and when I do offer giveaways. So, which types or categories inks? Would it be more useful to get and test samples of rare inks, with which little is known and few reviews have been published by well-known reviewers and random pen enthusiasts, versus inks that are more common and already much reviewed and/or discussed online, but one just wants to double-check for his/her nuanced use cases to confirm whether the ink is suitable for a given application? Would it be more useful to get and test samples of hard-to-get inks, such as shop exclusives of which there is only one retailer which is overseas (e.g. Diamine Jalur Gemilang, Sailor Kujukuri Coast series) and thus acquisition of such requires non-trivial effort and commitment, versus inks one could buy from any number of local retailers, either by online/mail order or off the shelf in a bricks-and-mortar store? Would it be more useful to get and test samples of inks that are relatively expensive (on a per-millilitre basis, or requiring a minimum purchase of >65ml even though the bottle price is no higher than a 20ml bottle of Sailor Shikiori), versus inks that are relatively cheap that one could have just spent a few dollars buying a full retail bottle with which to experiment in the first place, if one was curious as to which inks are worth buying? Would it be useful to get a taste, by way of a small sample equivalent to a short cartridge, of ink one would or could never buy (e.g. way too expensive, or long since discontinued) but nevertheless want to satisfy one's curiosity once and for all, without any prospect of putting it into actual use at any sort of scale? Or would satisfying one's curiosity and perhaps whetting one's appetite in such a manner not be useful at all, so the only useful samples are of inks one may be prepared to buy given the constraints of availability and price, but only after confirming through testing that those inks meet one's functional and qualitative requirements? Would it be more useful to get samples of inks that one would "never" trust to use in one's pens, such as pigment inks, but nevertheless wants to see how they would perform in one's use cases, so that one knows exactly which compromises are being made eyes wide open and confirm that one has made the right decision in not going for a more permanent, more waterproof, more saturated, blacker, etc. ink for a given purpose? What are your thoughts? My objective: I've already spent money acquiring a boatload of retail bottles of ink, to satisfy my curiosity about those inks. I want to help ("enable"?) like-minded fellow fountain pen enthusiasts to want more, buy more, spend more in pursuit of the hobby, but individually make fewer regrettable purchasing decisions along the way acquiring products that aren't fit for their purposes. I sorta lost interest in producing more ink reviews and contributing more data points for others to take into account in their own analysis, because some users like to complain about omission of particular information that they want to know. Well, they can do the work and the testing themselves, but I'm happy to contribute to opportunities here and there for them to do so.