Sailor Kobe # 37 Minatojima Island Blue

November 21, 2015

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Kobe (神戸市 Kōbe-shi) is the sixth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture. It is located on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, on the north shore of Osaka Bayand about 30 km (19 mi) west of Osaka. With a population around 1.5 million, the city is part of the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kyoto. Its name comes from "kanbe" (神戸), an archaic title for supporters of the city's Ikuta Shrine. Kobe became one of Japan's 17 designated cities in 1956.

Kobe is famous for its shirines and nioce architecture but among fountain pen and ink afficionados the name Kobe cause increased heart-rate. The city is a home of Nagasawa-Kobe stationery shop that offers incredible lione of more than fifty inks made by Sailor.

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https://kobe-nagasawa.co.jp/

My master - plan is to prepare comparison of full line of Nagasawa-Kobe inks. Not an easy task as they're not the most obtainable inks on the market, but hopefully I'll manage to do it

At the moment Nagasawa-Kobe offers 52 inks:

Minatojima Island Blue is more than decent. Lubricates the nib well.

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Drops of ink on kitchen towel

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Software ID

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Color range

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Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, B

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Leuchturm 1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, B

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Oxford, Hero 5028, stub 1,9

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Lyreco Budget Notebook, Visconti van Gogh, M

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November 21, 2015

I get nice sheen from this one but it's not a favourite. Maybe a little too generic.

November 21, 2015

Nice review of one of my very favorite inks. In fact, Island Blue is the first time I ever bought more than one bottle of the same ink.

December 17, 2015

Last drops of Minatojima Island Blue in Visconti Van Gogh fountain pen on oxford paper.

The sample's gone. I hope Atsu will answer me soon

December 18, 2015

That's a pretty color, and complex in an interesting way -- there's definitely a green/teal component that isn't obvious except in the chromatography example, and it seems to be really paper dependent as to what it looks like.

Thanks for the review. Sadly for my wallet, this might be another one for the short list....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

February 19, 2019

Beautiful review. It does full justice to the wonderfully subtle shading of this ink.

This a a firm favourite of mine, so much so that on a business trip to Japan last year I bought 5 bottles of it. Enough to last for a very long time if used sparingly, but sadly already one bottle is half empty.