Penbbs Ink Review Extravaganza Proposal

[truthpil]

Greetings All,

 

Winter break is here and as any self-respecting, FP-loving English teacher would do, I’d like to fill my free time by contributing to the FPN community.

 

As has been mentioned in other posts on this board, Penbbs is a group of FP lovers that is like a Chinese version of FPN.

Its owner has produced a lot of inks and cranks out as many as 15 new colors each year.

 

Difficulty obtaining these inks in the West means there aren’t many reviews in English.

Lgsoltek and visvamitra have gotten the ball rolling by reviewing some of them and I’d like to add some more.

 

Here’s my proposal:

 

Below are color samples of the inks available for the past 5 series of Penbbs inks.

Based on all your requests, I’m going to choose between 10 and 20 of them to review.

At a mere $0.30-50 per 5ml sample, this should be a lot of fun for little money.

 

To request reviews of any of the colors, just reply to this post with the corresponding numbers of the inks you want reviewed.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

[Uncial]

10-9

11-6

And whatever 13-3 is. Looks weird.

The saturation looks high. Nice inks.

[white_lotus]

I recently received a couple samples of Penbbs ink. I'll list these which seemed like they might be interesting: 10-6, 11-6, 11-4, 12-11, 12-12, 14-8. Don't feel any pressure to choose all of these, as I'm just offering up some of the inks that look intriguing to me.

One of these I picked simply because it had the name "Franklin D. Roosevelt". I don't know if the ink will be interesting at all because it seems like it could be black, or dark grey.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this!

[Sailor Kenshin]

10-3, 10-5, and 11-5 look interesting. Great idea!

[truthpil]

Thanks for your input! I'll keep a record of these and tally them all up in the end.

 

It's possible to find better swab images for some of these inks, so if there's one you'd like to see a better shot of please let me know and I'll try to post a better image. Searching for them is a good chance to practice my Chinese.

[kronion]

Just out of curiosity: Do you have an idea how these sample images are made,if not just printed? They resemble splashes of ink on paper,but they are exactly identical,even the smallest droplet.

[truthpil]

I don't really know, but since the colors within the "splashes" seem to have swab swiping lines (don't know what else to call the strokes across), I'm guessing they had some larger swab images and then just laid the same pattern over the top of them with computer software. Interesting effect.

[Noihvo]

Just out of curiosity: Do you have an idea how these sample images are made,if not just printed? They resemble splashes of ink on paper,but they are exactly identical,even the smallest droplet.

 

[jmccarty3]

These inks indeed are difficult to obtain. I recommend exercising extreme caution in ordering. One vendor insisted on payment by Western Union, resulting in credit card fraud. I did manage to obtain three of the inks, but they appear to be from later years than those shown above. I have Nos. 127 (an orange ink from 2015), No. 132 (AVG, a murky green from 2016), and No. 136 (Conna indica L, a red-orange from 2016). I don't know how this numbering system corresponds to the ones shown by the OP. The inks appear to be quite beautiful, but I plan to exercise caution with them. I need to buy several Pilot Metropolitans and TWSBI Ecos to allow me to try inks like this without worrying about ruining an expensive pen.

[truthpil]

These inks indeed are difficult to obtain. I recommend exercising extreme caution in ordering. One vendor insisted on payment by Western Union, resulting in credit card fraud. I did manage to obtain three of the inks, but they appear to be from later years than those shown above. I have Nos. 127 (an orange ink from 2015), No. 132 (AVG, a murky green from 2016), and No. 136 (Conna indica L, a red-orange from 2016). I don't know how this numbering system corresponds to the ones shown by the OP. The inks appear to be quite beautiful, but I plan to exercise caution with them. I need to buy several Pilot Metropolitans and TWSBI Ecos to allow me to try inks like this without worrying about ruining an expensive pen.

Hi jmccarty3,

 

I've read all your posts about the struggles you've had obtaining these inks. Unless things change I don't think many folks outside of China will be able to buy these inks, but I just thought I would take advantage of my opportunity while in country to try a bunch out and share my experiences. This way perhaps those who visit China can know in advance what to look for.

 

The numbering system above is just something I threw together because the original numbers were hard to read at a quick glance. The inks you have are all in the OP images.

[truthpil]

Thanks Noihvo,

You said exactly what I meant but with the correct terminology. =P

[visvamitra]

All of them

 

My preferences would be:

 

10-2

10-6

11-6

12-5

12-12

14-3

[truthpil]

All of them

 

I just might, but we'll see how the first round goes. I want to make sure they won't ruin my pens before getting more samples. Edited December 24, 2016 by TruthPil

[EclecticCollector]

10-2

11-2

12-4

12-7

14-5

 

I have friends in Beijing who visit the US a few times a year, how would I tell them how/where to buy this ink for me? They are not fountain pen users. Thanks!

[truthpil]

I have friends in Beijing who visit the US a few times a year, how would I tell them how/where to buy this ink for me? They are not fountain pen users. Thanks!

 

EclecticCollector,

 

I will be buying these inks through the most popular online shopping site in China called Taobao. I'm sure your friends will know about it. It's kind of like Amazon in that individual sellers all over the country can sell through the site and there are several sellers offering Penbbs inks, including Penbbs itself.

 

If you have any specific inks you'd like your friends to bring to the US for you, let me know which ones they are and I can send you a link where your friends can buy them and an image or document file that says the names of the inks in Chinese with corresponding pictures.

 

Here are links to the seller I'm planning on buying the inks from for this review series.

If you click on the images for the individual ink colors you can get a larger image of each. No Chinese proficiency required.

 

Series 10:

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.0.0.GVCdc4&id=538380358961

 

Series 11:

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.0.0.GVCdc4&id=538424553455

 

Series 12:

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.0.0.GVCdc4&id=538378898640

 

Series 13:

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.0.0.R2y3Lz&id=528040204981

 

Series 14:

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=2013.1.0.0.GVCdc4&id=538413225540

 

 

 

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. Please keep them coming!

[EclecticCollector]

 

EclecticCollector,

 

I will be buying these inks through the most popular online shopping site in China called Taobao. I'm sure your friends will know about it.

Thank you for the links! Yes they are quite familiar with Taobao.

[amberleadavis]

So, I want all ink samples. What can we do? LGSoltek shared these inks with the Inksters which is how Visvamitra and WhiteLotus also got samples. These inks are not easy to acquire here in the US.

[truthpil]

Merry Christmas!

 

I believe the only practical way would be for someone to bring them out of China in their luggage.

 

I'll probably be visiting the States in July, so I might be able to bring a load. However, I'll be boarding a plane in a countryside town where customs can be ridiculous at times, so it might be better if someone departing from a major Chinese city served as an "ink mule."

 

Love the inky Christmas tree!

[truthpil]

To update my original post, here are additional ink swabs made by penbbs.

 

I think the colors and names are much easier to see in these examples than in those of my OP.

I added my original numbering system to these images to keep things consistent.

 

Series 10:

 

Series 11:

 

Series 12:

 

Series 13:

 

Series 14:

[white_lotus]

Thanks for sharing this. I'll have to replace my list as some of the color appear quite different, and not as exciting as my original list. So here we go again: 11-2, 11-6,11-9, 12-12, and 14-7.

 

Again thanks for investigating these inks.