Akkerman Inks From The Netherlands

[saintsimon]

I appologize for derailing the thread and stirring up emotions.

 

BTT

  On 1/29/2011 at 10:12 PM, WOBentley said:

  On 1/29/2011 at 6:33 PM, saintsimon said:

  On 1/29/2011 at 5:59 PM, WOBentley said:

...

#10 (Akkerman IJzer Galnoten bl/zw the iron gall black)

...

Dave

Dave, that "bl/zw" stands for "blauw / zwart", blue-black.

It will be interesting to know, if #5 is Diamine Majestic Blue.

saintsimon

I thought that it was Blue-Black (again based on my extremely rudimentary German (lack of!) skills), so I asked them and their response was that it was an iron gall ink that goes on looking dark blue but quickly turns essentially black. It will be interesting to see what it actually does.

Dave

That sounds like Diamine Registrar's Ink, which shows exactly the same behaviour. It often oxidizes to a charcoal shade, it is among the darkest blue-black iron gall inks known on this board.

[WOBentley]

I have never used Diamine Registrar's Ink so I may not be able to tell...I have offered samples to Goulet as they are thinking about importing. I figured might as well send to ink experts!

Edited January 30, 2011 by WOBentley

[WendyNC]

Our European friends may understand better if we tell them that our wire transfer processes are significantly affected by a piece of legislation called The Patriot Act. Suffice it to say that it adds things to and limits the process in ways that I don't believe bankers would have written.

 

All that aside, I'm looking forward to reviews of this ink. Frankly, what I'd really like to find is a source for bottles of this style.

[welch]

  On 1/30/2011 at 3:33 AM, WendyNC said:

Our European friends may understand better if we tell them that our wire transfer processes are significantly affected by a piece of legislation called The Patriot Act. Suffice it to say that it adds things to and limits the process in ways that I don't believe bankers would have written.

 

All that aside, I'm looking forward to reviews of this ink. Frankly, what I'd really like to find is a source for bottles of this style.

 

1. Patriot Act has no impact on this

 

2. Nearly all cross-border money transfers go through SWIFT (= Society for Interbank Financial Telecommunications).

 

3. A money transfer inside the US is, ultimately, a simple instruction sent to the Federal Reserve, but

 

4. Only about 800 of the 8,000 US banks have enough international business to maintain their own connections to SWIFT. The US has been one common market since 1789; Virginia has never, since the Consitution was ratified, collected a tarriff on goods imported from Maryland. A smaller state bank or regional bank can make or receive an international payment by having an account at an international bank, such as JPM Chase.

 

5. A branch bank, like Sam's, is very unlikely to have had a person walk in and request a cross-border money transfer. A corporation will transfer money around the world, but banks have corporate sales groups to handle this.

 

6. It happens that Citizens and ABN Amro US are both part of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which helped to break up ABNA a couple of years ago. In Sam's particular case, RBS/Citizens and ABNAUS are part of the same family of banks that includes ABN NL. This does not mean that RBS has fully digested Citizens or the several parts of ABN, which had not yet digested all the banks it had recently acquired.

 

7. The IBAN has not been introduced into the US. There is a format for a US IBAN, but nothing more...just yet.

 

8. Yes, Paypal operates internationally, but there are banks underneath. Paypal does not publicize the mechanism by which they move money,

[saintsimon]

Thanks very much, that explains a lot. But if not on branch level, why not international SWIFT (non-IBAN) as a personal online banking service, like my group of local banks offers in my regular online banking account, parallel to SEPA (IBAN/BIC) payments. It's just a form, and Sam has to provide the required data himself in any case.

Paypal can do online, Western Union can do it, so ...

Edited January 30, 2011 by saintsimon

[drifting]

  On 1/29/2011 at 4:00 PM, GouletPens said:

I'm not sure what kind of tariffs, duties, customs fees, insurance, etc would be necessary for a US company like us to start carrying these inks (if Akkerman is even willing to wholesale them). I'm definitely going to wait to see some more reviews of the ink before pursuing anything, if it turns out to just be repackaged Diamine or something then I highly doubt it would be worth the trouble to import it to the US.

 

  On 1/30/2011 at 3:33 AM, WendyNC said:

All that aside, I'm looking forward to reviews of this ink. Frankly, what I'd really like to find is a source for bottles of this style.

 

Trying to import an independent retailer's house brand without the support of a distributor does sound difficult. An end run on that (to please the bottle afficianados if we can't please the ink lovers) might be politely asking Akkerman where they source their bottles, and trying to import those. And if the manufacturer makes the longneck bottle that Akkerman uses, maybe they make the baby longneck from the photo above, which seems, to me anyway, a little more practical than the 150ml bottle. I'd buy a couple of the baby longnecks to fill from those stupid Herbin demi-whatever bottles. Even if long term distribution wasn't practical, might it be worth a retailer's time to get a dozen cases or so of bottles to satisfy the lust interest floating around here?

 

Ryan.

[SamCapote]

  On 1/30/2011 at 4:25 AM, welch said:

  On 1/30/2011 at 3:33 AM, WendyNC said:

Our European friends may understand better if we tell them that our wire transfer processes are significantly affected by a piece of legislation called The Patriot Act. Suffice it to say that it adds things to and limits the process in ways that I don't believe bankers would have written.

 

All that aside, I'm looking forward to reviews of this ink. Frankly, what I'd really like to find is a source for bottles of this style.

 

1. Patriot Act has no impact on this

 

2. Nearly all cross-border money transfers go through SWIFT (= Society for Interbank Financial Telecommunications).

 

3. A money transfer inside the US is, ultimately, a simple instruction sent to the Federal Reserve, but

 

4. Only about 800 of the 8,000 US banks have enough international business to maintain their own connections to SWIFT. The US has been one common market since 1789; Virginia has never, since the Consitution was ratified, collected a tarriff on goods imported from Maryland. A smaller state bank or regional bank can make or receive an international payment by having an account at an international bank, such as JPM Chase.

 

5. A branch bank, like Sam's, is very unlikely to have had a person walk in and request a cross-border money transfer. A corporation will transfer money around the world, but banks have corporate sales groups to handle this.

 

6. It happens that Citizens and ABN Amro US are both part of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which helped to break up ABNA a couple of years ago. In Sam's particular case, RBS/Citizens and ABNAUS are part of the same family of banks that includes ABN NL. This does not mean that RBS has fully digested Citizens or the several parts of ABN, which had not yet digested all the banks it had recently acquired.

 

7. The IBAN has not been introduced into the US. There is a format for a US IBAN, but nothing more...just yet.

 

8. Yes, Paypal operates internationally, but there are banks underneath. Paypal does not publicize the mechanism by which they move money,

 

It is amazing the things that various FPN members know about. Obviously, I had no awareness of any of this, but found it fascinating. I can verify that #5 is true. Looking at her business card, the person I dealt with has the title "Assistant Branch Manager," and it was obvious this personal wire transfer was not anything she was familiar doing. Nor did she know what my charge would be for the service. I could not do it by phone. I could not do it with my online banking account. I checked beforehand.

 

On her card, there is also a tiny, obscure set of "RBS" letters--which I now understand--appearing as an afterthought in the lower left corner. With all the recent banking crises, I doubt they want to scream out that my local bank is now owned by a foreign Royal Bank of Scotland, which in turn is 83% owned by "citizens" of the UK (if my cursory reading is accurate), and perception being 90% of reality. Reading more about RBS, I'm likely now going to open and transfer assets beyond the FDIC coverage to a bank I'm more comfortable with.

 

I suspect most Americans have been successfully wooed by MC/VISA/American Express having 'greased all the transactional skids' we encounter. For the rest, if international companies want what's left of our deflated dollars, they will have setup PayPal or Google Checkout. On a personal level, I have only had the need to use wire transfers for a retail store product 3 times.

 

If I use PayPal or Western Union to "wire" money, it is done by phone with a MC/VISA account, or by simply giving them the numbers from the bottom of my personal check, specifically: the ABA ("American Bankers Association" started in 1910, during the waning years of horse travel) routing number, and my checking account number.

 

For good reason, I'm finding more and more PayPal merchants want payments made in their own Euro, Pound, or Yen currencies.

[lalindsay225]

I am praying that a US seller will import this line of inks. Or at least, that the seller will set up a PayPal account. I am not sure my credit union could handle this sort of transaction.

[Jimmy James]

  On 1/30/2011 at 6:16 AM, drifting said:

 

Trying to import an independent retailer's house brand without the support of a distributor does sound difficult. An end run on that (to please the bottle afficianados if we can't please the ink lovers) might be politely asking Akkerman where they source their bottles, and trying to import those. And if the manufacturer makes the longneck bottle that Akkerman uses, maybe they make the baby longneck from the photo above, which seems, to me anyway, a little more practical than the 150ml bottle. I'd buy a couple of the baby longnecks to fill from those stupid Herbin demi-whatever bottles. Even if long term distribution wasn't practical, might it be worth a retailer's time to get a dozen cases or so of bottles to satisfy the lust interest floating around here?

 

Ryan.

 

Additionally, if they sell the inks in packets, it's possible some arrangement could be made with the retailer to distribute the ink that way and the bottles could be separately sourced. All might win that way.

 

If somebody is heavily interested in the bottles, it might be worth contacting Specialty Bottle (or the other one -- is it Sunburst?). I know the folks at Specialty seem very nice and accommodating. If they need to buy for instance 1000 of these to place an order for us, perhaps we could do like a number of other forums and actually conduct a sort of presale-group buy.

[Skyppere]

Wouldn't some enterprising entrepeneur like to order a big bunch of them and then re-sell them here? Maybe start with two dozen. My guess is that they'd go fast. He could even get pre-orders from us... er... ME! These even with shipping aren't as expensive as ishirozuku!

cheers

skyppere

[welch]

  On 1/30/2011 at 4:40 AM, saintsimon said:

Thanks very much, that explains a lot. But if not on branch level, why not international SWIFT (non-IBAN) as a personal online banking service, like my group of local banks offers in my regular online banking account, parallel to SEPA (IBAN/BIC) payments. It's just a form, and Sam has to provide the required data himself in any case.

Paypal can do online, Western Union can do it, so ...

 

- Most US banks have a web-based bill-paying service, covering most of a customer's needs to move money. Ultimately, a payment ends up being an instruction to the Federal Reserve. Larger banks use FedWire; smaller banks might use FedLine. Some of the biggest banks have a cooperative called The Clearinghouse, which offers CHIPS (Clearinghouse Interbank Payment System) for large payments and EPN (Electronic Payments Network) for batches of small payments.

 

- The US interstate banking process was developed about 100 years ago...natural here, because the US is one large market. SEPA is recent because Europe has only begun to erase borders in the last 20 years.

 

- Banks -- SWIFT is a cooperative of banks -- would very much like to have part of Western Union's business in "workers remittances"...the money that a foreign worker sends home. However, Western Union is organized to provide an inexpensive and easy service. Banks are organized to make one-time-only deliveries of large amounts of money. Example: Volkswagen wants to order 10 million euros worth of steering wheels from a company in Malaysia for delivery to an assembly plant in Argentina.

[WendyNC]

  On 1/30/2011 at 4:25 AM, welch said:

  On 1/30/2011 at 3:33 AM, WendyNC said:

Our European friends may understand better if we tell them that our wire transfer processes are significantly affected by a piece of legislation called The Patriot Act. Suffice it to say that it adds things to and limits the process in ways that I don't believe bankers would have written.

 

All that aside, I'm looking forward to reviews of this ink. Frankly, what I'd really like to find is a source for bottles of this style.

 

1. Patriot Act has no impact on this

 

 

 

Silly me. I thought these people knew what they were talking about.

 

Anyway, back to those bottles!

[SamCapote]

  On 1/22/2011 at 6:55 PM, saintsimon said:

  On 1/22/2011 at 3:04 PM, epo said:

...

... These are special inks to mark their 100th year of trading (I think), ... it may be a matter of when they're gone, they're gone.

On their homepage, the small print says:"... Ter gelegenheid van het 100 jarig bestaan heeft P.W. Akkerman een eigen inktlijn geïntroduceerd. ..."

It says Akkerman used the occasion of their 100 year anniversary to introduce their own ink line. That sounds like a permanent product line, not an LE.

So, collectors: no panic!

 

Like Michael, the colours remind me of the French Callifolio inks, which can be ordered here:http://www.artisanpastellier.com

 

Still waiting for my wire transfer to show as received for the Akkerman's. Gotta love each of the banks in the chain holding my money for their own "float time" earning interest on all the thousands of transfers going around the world.

 

I received all 34 of the L' Artisan Pastellier Callifolio inks today. I love the packets, each containing 50 ml. I sampled 4 of the colors, and these are really rich, beautiful inks.

 

The Google translation says: Callifolio fluid inks for all fountain pens. All Callifolio inks can be mixed with each other. To create your color ink to darken or give a different tone, Callifolio inks can give infinitely varied possibilities. Specifications: Non-corrosive inks, fluids, do not fuse to paper, do not foul the pipes and feathers, bright light, good light fastness, pH 5 to 8 on average.

 

Wonder what is the most accurate English translation of the colors in red below. You can see their swab samples here, but in person they are a whole other rich character and color

 

ANAHUAC

ANDRINOPLE

AURORA

BAIKAL

BLEU ATLANTIQUE (Atlantic Blue)

BLEU AZUR (Azure Blue)

BLEU EQUINOXE 6

BLEU EQUINOXE 5

BLEU MEDITERRANEE (Mediterranean Blue)

BLEU PACIFIQUE (Pacific Blue)

BLEU ULTRAMARINE (Ultramarine)

BONNE ESPERANCE ? Good Hope ?

BORDEAUX

BOSPHORE

BOTANY BAY

BOURGOGNE (Burgundy)

BYZANCE

CANNELLE (Cinnamon)

CASSIS

GRENAT (Garnet)

GRIS DE PAYNE

HAVANE (Havana)

HEURE DOREE

INCA SOL

INTI

ITZAMNA

NOIR (Black)

OCONTO

OHLANGA

OLIFANTS

OMI OSUN

SEPIA

VIOLET

YALUMBA

 

 

Edited February 8, 2011 by SamCapote

[USMCMom]

Beautiful, beautiful colors!! I wasn't able to locate shipping information.

[galileo1225]

 

Still waiting for my wire transfer to show as received for the Akkerman's. Gotta love each of the banks in the chain holding my money for their own "float time" earning interest on all the thousands of transfers going around the world.

 

 

It is strange that the funds have not materialized in Akkerman's account. It has been more than a week now, yes? Electronic transfers from US to Amsterdam should not take more than 2 business days. If I were you, I'd ask my bank to put a trace on this transaction. Get the reference numbers for Akkerman to follow up with his bank as well.

[drifting]

  On 2/8/2011 at 2:52 AM, SamCapote said:

Wonder what is the most accurate English translation of the colors in red below. You can see their swab samples here, but in person they are a whole other rich character and color

 

ANAHUAC

ANDRINOPLE

--> proper noun, Turkish city

AURORA

--> same in English, no? But looking at the colour swab, I don't get the association

BAIKAL

--> proper noun, lake

BLEU ATLANTIQUE (Atlantic Blue)

BLEU AZUR (Azure Blue)

BLEU EQUINOXE 6

--> Equinox Blue (like the night sky on the equinox, maybe?)

BLEU EQUINOXE 5

BLEU MEDITERRANEE (Mediterranean Blue)

BLEU PACIFIQUE (Pacific Blue)

BLEU ULTRAMARINE (Ultramarine)

BONNE ESPERANCE ? Good Hope ?

--> yes, as in "Cape of..", or the waters off the tip of Africa

BORDEAUX

BOSPHORE

BOTANY BAY

BOURGOGNE (Burgundy)

BYZANCE

--> Byzantium

CANNELLE (Cinnamon)

CASSIS

--> black currant

GRENAT (Garnet)

GRIS DE PAYNE

--> Payne's Grey, an artist's colour, blue-grey

HAVANE (Havana)

HEURE DOREE

--> Golden Hour, the last hour before sunset, great light for artists

INCA SOL

--> Inca Sun

INTI

--> proper noun, that sun head god you see on the Peruvian? Argentinian? flag

ITZAMNA

NOIR (Black)

OCONTO

OHLANGA

OLIFANTS

OMI OSUN

--> proper noun, river in Africa, I think

SEPIA

VIOLET

YALUMBA

 

 

 

Ha. Done without the google: highschool Geography Challenge was good for something. I think a lot of the rest might be proper nouns/place names, too.

 

Ryan.

[SamCapote]

I was thinking there may be some people from France who may know some cultural references. I didn't get the Aurora being a rich red.

[drifting]

  On 2/8/2011 at 4:52 AM, SamCapote said:

I was thinking there may be some people from France who may know some cultural references. I didn't get the Aurora being a rich red.

 

I'm with you on the on the Aurora, but most of names are pretty global in scope, and the ones I tagged seemed fairly obvious. Unlike the Dutch inks, the names aren't explicitly French: Byzantine Blue, Inti, etc. seem about as culturally referential as Shoreline Gold or Zhivago, and therefore worth a comment. But what do I know. Guess I'll wait for the experts next time.

 

Ryan.

[impossiblebird]

  On 1/31/2011 at 1:24 AM, WendyNC said:

  On 1/30/2011 at 4:25 AM, welch said:

  On 1/30/2011 at 3:33 AM, WendyNC said:

Our European friends may understand better if we tell them that our wire transfer processes are significantly affected by a piece of legislation called The Patriot Act. Suffice it to say that it adds things to and limits the process in ways that I don't believe bankers would have written.

 

Patriot Act has no impact on this

 

 

 

Silly me. I thought these people knew what they were talking about.

As with so much legislation written in haste, remarkably little thought is given as to what will be achieved, and at what cost to normal, legit activity. The money laundering legislation in this country makes it remarkably difficult for anyone who doesn't hold a passport or driving licence (a surprisingly large number of people) to open any bank account, leaving them at a distinct disadvantage, and, worst case scenario, open to abuse by loan sharks and the like. Yet the intended targets of the legislation have remarkably little difficulty sidestepping it.

 

Ironically, one bank employee opined to me that the fact that she'd been able to refuse a perfectly kosher potential customer the opportunity to open a bank account somehow 'proved' the legislation was working. Unless... (curse the thought!) perhaps our legislators are so wedded to a 'no pain, no gain' philosophy, they deliberately create laws which will force the honest to suffer inconvenience and indignity, alongside the blameworthy; how else can they prove they're 'doing something'? :bonk:

[SamCapote]

  On 2/8/2011 at 3:38 AM, galileo1225 said:

 

  Quote

Still waiting for my wire transfer to show as received for the Akkerman's. Gotta love each of the banks in the chain holding my money for their own "float time" earning interest on all the thousands of transfers going around the world.

 

 

It is strange that the funds have not materialized in Akkerman's account. It has been more than a week now, yes? Electronic transfers from US to Amsterdam should not take more than 2 business days. If I were you, I'd ask my bank to put a trace on this transaction. Get the reference numbers for Akkerman to follow up with his bank as well.

 

It is indeed strange. I will not go through this again, and I cannot imagine a retail store like Akkerman's does not accept MC/VISA for in store purchases which would have made this so much easier.

 

I scanned my wire transfer authorization letter I received last week in the mail and sent it to Paul Rutte today. My bank is now running a trace on the transfer sent 1/28/2011 to see where the money went. I also got another bank notification of their charging $21.00 for this wire processing fee which I also told Paul about.

 

This is more hassle than going through Tenso to buy Japanese Sailor Kobe inks that are not available through Rakuten. It was immensely easier buying the entire 34 ink lineup from L' Artisan Pastellier Callifolio while running a google translation of each page during the ordering process.