Rohrer & Klingner Aubergine (2018 Limited Edition)

[Patrick L]

 

A quick shot:

 

Je ne sais comment vous remercier.

[KaB]

I'm tempted. A lot.

thx for the review

[penzel_washinkton]

Beautiful shade, too bad it's sold out in FountainFeder

[pennonia]

Sold out.

 

I still have 6 bottles left, but I can only send it to EU countries.

[A Smug Dill]

@pennonia Thanks Matt for letting us know.

[migo984]

I still have 6 bottles left, but I can only send it to EU countries.

Ordered two from you yesterday :-)

[Jan2016]

Thank you for the review!

Like the comparison with a lot of other colors.

[pennonia]

Ordered two from you yesterday :-)

 

Thanks! I just finished packing them. I'll post them tomorrow.

 

I also currently have the ink in one of my pens, it's a really nice purple. I only tried out about 100 inks so far (trying to log everything at FPC) but I don't think I've quite gotten my hands on a nice dark purple like this before. I bet there's one really similar to it from Diamine though The amount of inks they have is ridiculous.

[A Smug Dill]

@pennoia The number of inks Sailor makes put Diamine to shame, I'm afraid. I can't think of one that would look the same as R&K Aubergine, though, just from the scans Lgsoltek has done of the latter.

[encremental]

Just out of interest, how many inks does Sailor make which are in continuous production?

 

Diamine have 182 readily available, with a few special editions or sets for shops. Best of all, the majority are also available in bottles that cost a tempting £2.67

 

John

[Honeybadgers]

Probably damn near 200, including all the special store only stuff.

 

Too many for such a garbage bottle design and botique price.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Honeybadgers

[migo984]

Probably damn near 200, including all the special store only stuff.

 

Too many for such a garbage bottle design and botique price.

There’s a 100 in their Studio line alone. I reckon nearer 500.

(I have close to 200, not counting the Studio line).

[encremental]

Good grief! That is astonishing, and interesting how such a conservative company has really embraced the recent interest in inks. I've got about a dozen from ten years ago, and they were hard enough to get.

 

R&K could sell a lot more than they do, I think. I would buy this one in a shot if they'd let me.

 

John

[lgsoltek]

Good grief! That is astonishing, and interesting how such a conservative company has really embraced the recent interest in inks. I've got about a dozen from ten years ago, and they were hard enough to get.

 

R&K could sell a lot more than they do, I think. I would buy this one in a shot if they'd let me.

 

John

 

Yes I agree R&K can use some new releases. However I would have liked that they chose to do limited editions in a Pelikan Edelstein way (limited to a year), instead of a number-limited way (2000 bottles in total).

[A Smug Dill]

instead of a number-limited way (2000 bottles in total).

It's probably smarter for R&K to foster (unsatisfied) demand, then try to please and satisfy everyone when it releases a 'limited edition' colour. It can always do a Sailor (or Diamine) later, and make a previously LE ink part of a new line in its stable without selling it as cheaply as its 'standard' colours.

[lapis]

I phoned earlier with R&K and they said that they don't do LEs regularly on a one-per-year basis -- on purpose. That's not their philosophy because the regular line (all 20) plus their LEs aren't their "staple" sellers, anyhow. The sketchINKs and a lot of other articles account for the major sales. I.e., it's more artists and drawers than just "writers" who are their main-aim customers. The actual numbers of LEs per issue has always been exactly 1000, except for the first LE in 2011 which was limited to 500. This November's Aubergine is limited to about 2000. They're still not yet finished manufacturing and selling it. That's why this time there is no actual limit numbering on the label and/or box (like "XY/1000").

[lapis]

FWIW I also found out that this new R&K LE will be sold in my store (which I don't own and where I don't work) in two weeks (so they say) and at a price of 8.88 Euros. It isn't in their website yet, and I don't know exactly where and when it will appear there... but you might try your luck here, or just mail 'em or phone 'em if you can't find the ink anywhere else....

[Honeybadgers]

It's a shame, though, because alt-goldgrun is kind of the standard yellow-green for inks with amazing shading, and their two iron galls are super reliable, gorgeous colors.

 

The only one I don't love is the sunflower yellow. I think they need to rename their inks, too. The name of an ink's color really does help sell it for people like me. I'd much prefer "dark matter" over "black" or "neptune blue" over "blue"

 

Memorable names, too.

Edited November 7, 2018 by Honeybadgers

[A Smug Dill]

@Honeybadgers

Helianthus is the genus name for sunflower, though, isn't it? It's not as if R&K named that ink Yellow, but the choice of name on which it settled quite aptly describes the colour as much as Orange, Apricot and Avocado would for those respective colours.

I love names such as:

• in the Sailor Shikiori line: souten 蒼天 (blue sky), shimoyo 霜夜 (frosty night), yodaki 夜焚 (night bonfire), kinmokusei 金木犀 (gold osmanthus)
• in the Pilot Iroshizuku line: ama-iro 天色 (colour of sky), chiku-rin 竹林 (bamboo forest), ku-jaku 孔雀 (peacock), ajisai 紫陽花 (hydrangea), and more or less all the other names too in that product line

and I think R&K has done quite well with Leipziger Schwarz (Leipsician black), Smaragdgrün (viridian green), Alt-Goldgrün (old golden green) and Helianthus (sunflower) in the same vein.

 

By the way, as a disclaimer for clarity's sake, I don't speak/understand either Japanese or German, but I just treat names as proper nouns to be 'learnt', with or without the meaning or history behind each one. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Japanese inks having Japanese names (and it's a nice touch, but not completely necessary, for the manufacturer to provide 'official' English translations of those names), German inks having German names, etc. You can argue about marketing impact and commercial wisdom, but neither of those things would make a name such as yama-budo or Blu mare less than apt.

Edited November 7, 2018 by A Smug Dill

[lgsoltek]

But I love the R&K ink names!