Route 54 Motor Oil - Repeating Chrissy's Cigar Experiment

[bobje]

Ruth, fascinating history about green dye. One of my favorite scenes in "A Knight's Tale" is when they make a suit from green drapes, and then dance to a remixed version of David Bowie's "Golden Years."

 

Jack (aka BarkingPig), thanks again for the Akkerman no. 24 -- your Candela will be in the mail tomorrow.

 

Prithwijit, thank you -- I am envious of many inks available in India. Vaibhav Mehandiratta has prepared beautifully detailed reviews of several Daytone inks, and his recent reviews of Krishna yellow valley and ghat green are terrific. (And Krishna monsoon sky and mangal and ....) We are looking forward to the day when these inks become available in other markets.

 

Chrissy, we are going to create the optimal tobacco/cigar-colored ink, regardless of whether it resembles P&M Cigar or newly available Cuban Churchills!

[migo984]

Pen & Message Cigar ink is only made by Sailor Japan for Pen & Message, and it is only available for domestic shipping. Sailor Japan won't ship it Internationally to Sailor Distributors and nor will Pen & Message.

 

Sailor Japan doesn't supply any of their 'specially manufactured inks' (Pen & Message, Kingdom Note, Maruzen, Kobe, Bung Box - to name but a few) to their 'International' distributors. They are all only made available within Japan. I know that Bung Box makes some of their inks available to International sources, but Sailor Japan doesn't supply anyone but Bung Box with Bung Box labelled inks. So these inks are effectively made as Japan only inks.

 

This information was given to me by both Sailor Japan and the CEO of Sailor UK. If they are wrong I will happily pass on the correct information.

 

The fact that these inks were originally supplied in vase shaped bottles, that were discontinued, has nothing to do with the fact that they aren't supplied Internationally by Sailor.

 

Montblanc however, regularly ship their LE inks worldwide so they are available to everyone. They aren't just manufactured for availability within Germany.

Because inks are only available in Japan, (actually a situation still common with Japanese manufacturers and sellers of many products, not just inks), it doesn't make them unavailable or even hard to buy. If you'd wanted a bottle of Cigar a few years ago you could easily have bought several. The recent difficulties are a different issue.

Same as Mb - their LE inks (as Cigar could now be classified) can be just as hard to find too, for some. If you buy Mb at the right time it's fairly easy, but if you don't then supplies become very restricted. So a similar result.

[migo984]

There are many people who say that Sailor Rikyu-cha and Sailor Pen & Message Cigar are identical.

 

I've never tried Rikyu-cha. Since that ink was recently re-issued by Sailor for the Japanese market, and wasn't sent to International distributors, I can't comment on whether or not that is true. But when Bob made his first Cigar copy, you commented that it looked closer to Sailor Rikyu-cha, so I can only assume that it does.

I have both (original and re-release) and yes, they are (very) close to Cigar, as I said, but they are not, in my eyes, *identical*. But, as is usual, people's perceptions of colours vary, so maybe others do see them as exactly the same in all respects.

And as I said to Bob, what I see on my monitor may not be true-to-life. As many other people agree, there are numerous variables that affect what we each see when ink colours are shown online. The reality is often very different from the online appearance.

[Rach31]

Because inks are only available in Japan, (actually a situation still common with Japanese manufacturers and sellers of many products, not just inks), it doesn't make them unavailable or even hard to buy. If you'd wanted a bottle of Cigar a few years ago you could easily have bought several. The recent difficulties are a different issue.

Same as Mb - their LE inks (as Cigar could now be classified) can be just as hard to find too, for some. If you buy Mb at the right time it's fairly easy, but if you don't then supplies become very restricted. So a similar result.

Right now it's tough to find an $11 bottle of Lamy Dark Lilac! Usually you have a tough time giving away Lamy ink, now it's sold out. (Of course once they release again in May it may be a different story.)

[Chrissy]

 

Chrissy, we are going to create the optimal tobacco/cigar-colored ink, regardless of whether it resembles P&M Cigar or newly available Cuban Churchills!

 

 

Way to go Bob.

[ludicrouslyidiotic]

I own two bottles of Cigar, and found that it could be replicated using a mixture of Waterman's Absolute Brown, and Sailor's Tokiwa-Matsu which are both much more easily obtainable. The resulting mixture is slightly less lubricated, but the shading/sheen/colour/colour changing properties are identical. I did this a while ago, so I can't recall if it was a 1:1 or 2:1/1:2 mixture however.

[Tas]

I own two bottles of Cigar, and found that it could be replicated using a mixture of Waterman's Absolute Brown, and Sailor's Tokiwa-Matsu which are both much more easily obtainable. The resulting mixture is slightly less lubricated, but the shading/sheen/colour/colour changing properties are identical. I did this a while ago, so I can't recall if it was a 1:1 or 2:1/1:2 mixture however.

 

Photos . . .PHOTOS !

[grainweevil]

Has anyone else tried this Waterman's Absolute Brown/Sailor Tokiwa-matsu mix who actually has Cigar to compare it to? Because I did the former and it does indeed seem to exhibit some of the characteristics of Cigar that I've seen described, but don't have a real life example of the latter to know if the ratio I settled on (2:1 Sailor:Waterman) is anywhere close to correct. Depending on which samples I view online it's either too brown, or too green, or sometimes just right!

 

And yes, before you ask, I tried to get halfway decent photos of my version but failed hopelessly. If anyone can point me to a "How to photograph ink" guide, I'd be in their debt.

[grainweevil]

So that'll be a No on both counts then?

[Tas]

Daylight, but not direct sunlight, near a window, bosh. Give it a go, we'd love to see it.

I think I tried it a Havanna Brown, Salamander mix but it looked all wrong.

[FOUR X FOUR]

Bob, that's a nice color you came up with

[grainweevil]

Daylight, but not direct sunlight, near a window, bosh. Give it a go, we'd love to see it.

 

Direct sunlight is not a problem today! Okay, I've given it a go, but honestly not convinced it'll be terribly illuminating. However, fwiw:

 

 

That's on Kokuyo Campus paper.

 

 

Silvine school exercise book, and below. Not terribly great stuff for demonstrating sheen.

 

 

 

And finally on Rhodia with a little water.

 

Cigar-esque or not, it's still an interesting blend. Not sure if I actually like it, but interesting.

[Tas]

and there I was using a dozen inks.

 

Yours is lovely. Thanks for sharing.

 

*frantically rummages around to find an ink similar to Tokiwa-matsu . . .

[grainweevil]

While this is ludicrouslyidiotic's suggestion, I must admit I also tend to stay to simple 2 or 3 ink mixes. It's about all my weevil brain can cope with. I'm in awe of you folks who take apart and then try and recreate an existing ink with multiple components. If A and B together results in a usable C, weevil happiness is easily attained.

 

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement to try the pics again. Reward yourself with a bottle of Tokiwa-matsu. You know you want to...

[eharriett]

Just found this. I may give it a shot. Was looking for an alternate brown with a bit more shading than I currently have.

 

Has anyone tried making a homemade recreation of one of P&M's other inks: Vintage Denim?

[bobje]

The Waterman brown / Sailor tokiwa matsu blend sounds like a terrific solution, and with sheen!