About My Reviews

[brgphilly]

"For any Maruzen/Athena inks, I am encouraging people to go with Atsu, because when all other vendors could not get information on what inks were available, Atsu went to the store in person and took pictures and then made me a pdf collage, so I could choose which colours I wanted. The only reason I knew what inks to choose was because of him, so I bought all my Athena ink from him."

 

I would like to purchase Athena ink from Atsu, if only I knew who he is and where/how to find this person. Can anybody help?

 

Thanks,

 

Barry

[kp288908]

Well done, and thank you!

[saskia_madding]

With more questions, I clarify the original post more. I've updated it to indicate that Atsu is the real life name of the guy behind cool-japan on ebay.

 

I do not want to corner the market on reviews. The more the merrier! I actually hope that by doing reviews, I will encourage more people to do them too.

[PDW]

First off, I want to acknowledge that this feels like an incredibly self indulgent post to write. I would never have considered doing this, except so many people have asked me for the same information over and over again, and many have requested the information in threads of my reviews. Instead of answering each person separately, it makes more sense to just put up a post and then link to it in my signature.

 

 

No, it's not self-indulgent. If people didn't value your work they wouldn't be asking these questions!

 

Take it as (slightly convoluted) praise

 

... and +1 to all the other positive comments!

[LagNut]

I really appreciate this post.

 

First, I understand more about your reviews now. I didn't understand that you had multiple paper types with the little squares. Obvious in hindsight, but didn't occur to me.

 

Second, I really appreciate having your sources in one spot (cool-japan, etc.) My wallet probably does not. I really like the Clairfontain notebooks you found, I am reasonably sure they'll take over from my current choice.

 

Cheers

Mike

[Sinistral1]

Thanks, Saskia, for keeping this post updated with ordering information. After one $40 bottle of Sailor ink with brown algae in it, a person does start to consider the "I really need this" idea for getting another Sailor ink bottle with bugs on the label and in the name!

[saskia_madding]

I really vote for buying a slew of bottles from the same vendor, as this really keeps costs down with WRE. If you're looking at just a bottle here and there from different vendors, Amazon might be worth considering, and Atsu is great too.

 

I'm happy to keep this updated. I've almost tracked down a fairly non-exciting line I hadn't known about before, so keep your eyes posted for more!

[Sinistral1]

I just checked Amazon and using "Clown Tear Bungubox" got no result, but lots of suggestions that are spot on! At this point, I must curb my enthusiasm, take a deep breath, go buy some vellum at Michaels and practice an enormous amount of self control. If I have to, I will go chew the ears off one of my many Beanie Baby Bears to remind myself that "Oh, shiny" isn't always healthy, financial or otherwise.

 

I do have one question about these inks. It said that each ink is hand crafted by a toning master. Do you know what that means? Are these inks the craft beer, micro brewery equivalent to what is offered by Waterman and Pelikan, et al? The price and elusiveness make it seem that way, but the previously mentioned Beanie Baby thing was also just a marketing ploy to make billions. I think the ink is very good, and there is nothing wrong with the laws of supply and demand, I am just wondering about the uniqueness aspect of it, that's all.

[serpent]

I just bought two bottles direct from BungBox. Price wasn't bad $33 each PP'd and shipped.

[Sinistral1]

That is a good price. A few of us are working on a group buy for early next year from Bung Box, Kingdom Note and Maruzen, and hope to get the per bottle price to around $25.

Edited July 6, 2014 by Sinistral1

[serpent]

1 xオリジナルインク【The ink of Witch】

1 xオリジナルインク【Shogun Ieyasu】

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JPY2160 x 2 ＝ JPY 4320

Shipping JPY 2220

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total JPY 6540

above is the invoice they sent me ink is about $21each. brunt of the order is EMS shipping. probably much cheaper with larger qty of ink.

[saskia_madding]

Would that be $25 before inside-USA shipping, or after? As an estimate, of course.

[Sinistral1]

Before the US re-shipping. Thanks for pointing that out!

[serpent]

Just received an e-mail from BungBox. Best buy in is for 20 bottles. $21.45 ea plus $4.20 EMS $25.45 landed to USA. Re-shipping, probably best bet would be USPS Priority. I'm guessing small box would probably hold up to 4 bottles so that would add approx $6 to ship to your door in CONUS. Once you add in paypals 2.8% fee for collecting payment there is not much to be saved considering my purchase direct for 2 bottles equaled $32.13 delivered to my front door.

I will be placing another order soon since I forgot to order a bottle of 4B, so if anyone is interested in adding to that I wouldn't mind orchestrating a group buy.

[Sinistral1]

Serpent:

 

If you really want to do this, I suggest starting a new thread in one of the ink forums - I suspect there will be a significant response and could result in orders for waaaay more than 20 bottles. Make sure to include a chart of which colors will be available and how you want people to pay, as well as how to provide you with their mailing info and payment for the US distribution. As a two time group buy veteran (Akkerman from the Netherlands and Toucan from Australia) I highly encourage all members to take on a group buy. You get to "meet" all sorts of new inksters and give back to a great community of pen, ink and paper people. Plus, an added perk is that there is no re-shipping cost for the ink you order. Good luck!

[alarickc]

To Sinistral1 and Serpent:

Why don't we add serpent to our group buy message thread and discuss this further there. I personally would recommend holding off and doing one huge group buy in December/January for best turn out, thereby giving us all access to all of the off season colors. I still think that giving people lots of heads-up and targeting the time of year when many(not just myself) may have more discretionary cash will lead to a larger turn out than would otherwise be true.

[Sinistral1]

Serpent - let us know if you can wait a few months for your bottle of 4B. We can add you to our group buy conversation, if you are interested.

[serpent]

I can wait, please add me. I just feel bad taking saskia thread OT

[Sinistral1]

You are added, serpent. Check out your personal messages and we can leave Saskia's thread for it's original purpose.

[Ana_]

First off, I want to acknowledge that this feels like an incredibly self indulgent post to write. I would never have considered doing this, except so many people have asked me for the same information over and over again, and many have requested the information in threads of my reviews. Instead of answering each person separately, it makes more sense to just put up a post and then link to it in my signature.

Just want to thank you for this post! Had no idea where to buy Kobe Sepia ink and came across your post above and just bought it from your ebay source, Thank You!