Inky T O D - Where Do You Buy Ink?

[ac12]

Online: goulet, isellpens

Retail: Village Stationers (Palo Alto, CA), FLAX (San Francisco), University Art (Palo Alto, CA)

Group Buy: Toucan, waiting for the Polish ink

 

For standard inks (Sheaffer Skrip, Parker Quink, Cross, Waterman), buying local retail, saves a lot on the cost of shipping inks. Plus it helps the local business.

But for any of the specialty inks, I have to go online.

[inkstainedruth]

Online: Goulet Pens, Isellpens, Zeller Writing Company, and (IIRC) either Anderson Pens or Pendemonium; also (a couple of times for vintage inks) on Ebay.

Retail: I've gotten a couple of bottles of Private Reserve inks at a local old-time stationers called Weldin's; plus I've gone to Fountain Pen Hospital and Art Brown's in NYC on trips visiting family.

Pen Shows: Picked up a few things last year at DCSS from Anderson Pens and Indy-Pen-Dance.

Group buys: (well, not yet, but I've sent my list to FPN member Jared for the Akkerman group buy at this year's DCSS; of course now I have to not only scarf up the money for the ink, but also for the hotel...).

Antique stores: Yup, done that a couple of times. First time was 2 summers ago in some place in north central PA, where I found a mostly full bottle of vintage Quink Brown, and then I found a 2/3 full 8 oz bottle of Skrip Peacock Blue at a place somewhere northwest of Clarion, PA.

Friends/Family/PiFs: Well, I've been able to get fills and leftover samples of some at pen club meetings. Back when they still happened. And brought along stuff for other people to try as well. Not sure this counts as "bought" though....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PAKMAN]

Pretty much exclusively at Vanness Pens these days! Awesome selection!

[I like mango cheesecake]

I do my best to patronize our local B&M store that hosts our monthly pen club meetings. I've bought pens, inks, pen cases, rollerball ink refills and more from him. If he doesn't have it, then I would look to our other B&M store, or go online.

[Komitadjie]

Goulet, almost exclusively. I've purchased one from JetPens (fine experience, no trouble at all) and one from Mr. Mottishaw at the same time as my Sailor pen (again a very smooth buy!)

 

I'd LIKE to buy from a local shop, but there isn't one. I'm not aware of one here in Washington state at all, much less within a reasonable distance.

[Lorna Reed]

All my ink purchases are online. I have only bought samples from Goulet so far. I usually by from The Writing Desk, direct from Diamine Inks and from Taizo (Engeika) for Iroshizuku.

[martinbir]

B&M store, Andy's Pens in Tonbridge, Kent - very helpful guy.

 

On line, mainly Cult Pens but also Writing Desk - great service from both.

 

My one experience buying direct from Diamine was not so wonderful. No communication from them and about a week for delivery.

 

In contrast, I placed an order with Cult Pens late on Friday planning for it to miss that day's despatch and not arrive on Saturday when we would be out. We got home to find the postman had squeezed it through the door!

[Pira]

Being in a small city in Canada my options are limited to online for what I want.

 

While I have shopped at Jetpens, mostly I purchase my inks from Goulet and the Alberta online shop, StylusFinepens ~ the latter being a good option for Canucks because there is no PST. Also, they are the Canadian distributor for Diamine and have a fairly good selection of other brands including Noodler's. Best of all...no customs paperwork charges, which amounts to $10 on top of tax and shipping.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Pira

[Zuzu]

Mostly online. For some reason it is cheaper to order from the UK and the Netherlands rather than Germany (which would be much closer). So if I look for ink I check the writing desk or la couronne du comte.

 

I do buy some inks in B&M stores around here, but selection is usually limited to Pelikan, Lamy and occasionally Waterman.

[*Mirjam*]

Online, Noodler's ink from Goulet, kobe ink via ebay and the rest from La couronne du comte.

[MusterMark]

Amazon or Goulet Pens. I bought some Montblanc and Visconti bottles at the Chicago Pen Show last month, mainly because I had trouble finding an online store that carried both brands and had reasonable shipping rates.

[English]

Goulet Pens - great company; phenominal customer service; fast and secure delivery

... including a Tootsie Pop

[English]

Goulet Pens - great company; phenominal customer service; fast and secure delivery

... including a Tootsie Pop

[WC Lee]

I get all my inks from either ISellPens or The Goulet's ... I might have gotten one bottle of Quink Black from Staples once over a year ago (still haven't opened it yet)

[amberleadavis]

Online: Swisher back in the day, Isellpens.com, Goulet, FPH, eBay, Amazon

Retail in Person: Paradise Pen (now closed), Office Max (now closed) and the Montblanc Boutique

Retail via Phone: Dromgooles

Pen Shows: From Anderson

Group Buys: I often coordinate them.

Specialty Brokers: I haven't personally coordinated the buys from Atsu or White Rabbit, but I've been the recipient.

Classifieds: Gotten some great stuff that way.

Gifts: I love prezies.

[LWJ2]

Online: Goulet (who are actually "local" in that they're in Virginia) and occasionally Anderson's; when I run out, ESS in the UK for their Registrar's Blue-Black (£10.50 including shipping for 130ml bottle)

 

Store: Fahrney's in Washington DC. We drop in whenever we make one of our trips up that way. I grew up with Fahrney's, my dad introduced me to them. His Parker 51 was probably purchased from them, back about 1947 or so. In college (here) I'd buy Quink from Staples. When I lived in NoVA I'd just drive across the river to Fahrney's.

 

Other: E-bay -- Judds offers decent deals on inks now and then. Look for judperl there. I've bought the odd pen and pipe from them also.

[Scootz]

Almost entirely online from Goulet, where I'm slowly working my way through the Diamine and De Atramentis inks.

[SujiCorp12345]

Amazon, and I have a bunch of Diamine from Niklas at Nordic Pen Imports.

Edited June 14, 2014 by SujiCorp12345

[RudyR]

I buy at a retail store. I hop on the bus and go to World Lux in Seattle. They got mostly all the ink I ever will need or want.

Edited June 14, 2014 by RudyR

[Hardcase]

Online at Goulet or Amazon if Goulet doesn't have it.

 

If we had a brick and mortar store within 50 miles of here, I'd take all of my business there.

 

By the way, if a business school taught customer service, Goulet could be their case study in how to excel.