How Much To Stockpile Of Your Favorites?

[torstar]

I have a few favourite inks at three or four locations, otherwise purchases just kind of happen.....

[Kalessin]

I don't have many duplicates, but I do have:

 

Three Parker Penman Sapphire. I do wish I'd had the foresight to buy them before PPS was discontinued. Monteverde Horizon Blue is a great substitute, and I have a 90ml bottle of it.

 

Two Parker Penman Emerald. Nice green.

 

Four two-ounce bottles of Skrip Peacock Blue: one in the squat red-box bottle, one in the regular red-box bottle and box, one in the 80s bottle and box with the giant word "ink" on the label, and one in the 1960s Textron-era bottle and box. I really like the exact shade of Peacock Blue, and this supply will likely last until the end of my natural life; I've used less than an ounce from these bottles.

[sirgilbert357]

J. Herbin Lie de Thè has to me always seemed really similar to Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz. The Writing Desk offer certain J. Herbin inks in 100ml bottles (this one as well), which should last you a fairly long time. I haven't tried Smoky Quartz, but I can vouch for Lie de Thè being one of the smoothest-writing inks I've tried (only surpassed by certain Sailor Jentle inks).

 

 

 

Dominique

I have a sample of Lie de The waiting for me, I plan to compare it to Smoky Quartz soon. I am currently enjoying a sample of Iroshizuku Yama guri, which is nice, but it's a darker, less golden (than smoky quartz) brown. Very smooth flowing though.

[tinta]

I keep one back-up bottle for each of my favourite inks, with a date sticker on the bottle.

Not that I'm too worried that my inks will go off, the label just reminds my slipping memory when I acquired it. Since my tastes run to mid-blues, blue-blacks, a purple, a claret, maybe three or four ferrogallic colours, a couple of sepias & a green, it's not a huge stash.

I don't remember buying a bottle of ink for a good four years, focusing more on international cartridge inks that are hard to get.

Edited January 31, 2019 by tinta

[DrDebG]

While I do have quite a number of bottles of ink, I do not stockpile. I guess if a favorite ink that I is no longer available, I will just have to search harder for a new favorite ink.

[whych]

I have a sample of Lie de The waiting for me, I plan to compare it to Smoky Quartz soon. I am currently enjoying a sample of Iroshizuku Yama guri, which is nice, but it's a darker, less golden (than smoky quartz) brown. Very smooth flowing though.

Lie de The is a nice brown that doesn't bleed as easily as Smoky Quartz. Also not as dark as SQ in a wet pen like Pelikan.

 

I found to get the real benefit of the brown in SQ, it works best in a dry pen with a fine nib, but I still like the ink.

[OCArt]

The few times I've bought a spare bottle a new ink in a similar color comes along that I like better.

[Mongoosey]

I stockpiled:

 

Kiwa-Guro, This ink bridges my fountain pens to the practical world because it performs so well on cheap paper.

 

Heart of Darkness, my favorite black, because it works well in every pen I throw it in and it's Eternal.

 

One's I'd consider to stockpile:

 

Take-Sumi- I simply love it (feel, flow, easy maintenance, depth of color it somehow creates while being black, crispness, legibility), but it doesn't work as well on cheap paper and isn't permanent so it's less practicable for me.

 

Asa-Gao- OMG. I don't like blues that often, but this is a Wow! Struck me when I first tested it at a pen show.

 

Kung Te-Cheng: Only good Indigo colored ink out there, Absolutely beautiful color, but I can't find a pen it works well in that I like.

[Runnin_Ute]

Currently the only ink I have more than one bottle of is Edelstein Olivine (2) and that was by chance. I ended up with two from the Pelikan Hubs here. Plus a bottle of Aventurine and Sapphire.

[sirgilbert357]

Lie de The is a nice brown that doesn't bleed as easily as Smoky Quartz. Also not as dark as SQ in a wet pen like Pelikan.

 

I found to get the real benefit of the brown in SQ, it works best in a dry pen with a fine nib, but I still like the ink.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I should probably try it in a dry pen; it is currently in a Pelikan M800 with a medium nib, so I get a pretty generous line of ink from it.

[A Smug Dill]

The highest number of bottles I have acquired of an ink (without having first depleted any bottles of it) is four. That ink was Sailor souboku ink, last year, because it was new on the market, relatively difficult to get in Australia at the time, and even though it just isn't my style to sell what I have, I imagined it would be easy to sell off 'excess' bottles, or give them away as presents to people I know outside of FPN. In the end, I gave one bottle away at Christmas, am using one myself, and two new bottles of it are sitting on the shelf under my desk.

 

I ordered three 50ml bottles of Rohrer & Klingner (2018 Limited Edition) Aubergine, because it looks like a nice enough ink, and was supposed a pain in the butt to get on demand (at least in Australia). Right now my fiancée (whose colour is purple) is the only one using it here.

 

Out of three bottles of Noodler's Kiowa Pecan I bought in 2013(?) – and I actually liked the colour, and use it sometimes – I ended up giving one away as a PIF here. I still have more than 150ml of it at my disposal.

 

All of the above should have taught me not to stockpile the inks that I thought I was going to love and use all the time.

 

So why do I still have three bottles of Sailor Shikori rikyu-cha, just because I heard it was being discontinued in the cheaper 50ml bottles?

[VivaTerlingua]

I try not to get additional bottles of things, though I do have 3 bottles of Rikyu-cha, 2 bottles of Tokiwa-matsu, and 2 bottles of R&K Aubergine. Can't say I will never buy a 2nd bottle of something again down the road, but there will need to be special circumstances. I have been tempted to buy another bottle of Souboku, since that is the only "professional ink" (work-safe and waterproof) I use, but I will resist unless I find out that Sailor plans to try something funky with the Nano line.

 

Rikyu-cha is my all-time favorite ink (although I haven't tried its big brother Cigar), and once I heard Sailor was going to price gouge its customers, I decided to get another couple bottles to last me a lifetime.

 

Same rationale for Tokiwa-matsu, as it is my wife's favorite ink and we both use it relatively often.

 

Aubergine was a happy accident, as I had a bottle already but received another one as a gift. It has quickly become property of the wife's, so nothing wasted.

 

Really trying to embrace letting things run their course, though. Living in a studio apartment kind of forces that, either way.

[sirgilbert357]

I keep one back-up bottle for each of my favourite inks, with a date sticker on the bottle.

 

 

 

That's not a bad idea. Going forward, I might slap a piece of invisible tape on the bottom of mine and use a Sharpie to put the date. Would be interesting to look back later and see the ages of the different bottles.

[sirgilbert357]

The highest number of bottles I have acquired of an ink (without having first depleted any bottles of it) is four. That ink was Sailor souboku ink, last year, because it was new on the market, relatively difficult to get in Australia at the time, and even though it just isn't my style to sell what I have, I imagined it would be easy to sell off 'excess' bottles, or give them away as presents to people I know outside of FPN. In the end, I gave one bottle away at Christmas, am using one myself, and two new bottles of it are sitting on the shelf under my desk.

 

I ordered three 50ml bottles of Rohrer & Klingner (2018 Limited Edition) Aubergine, because it looks like a nice enough ink, and was supposed a pain in the butt to get on demand (at least in Australia). Right now my fiancée (whose colour is purple) is the only one using it here.

 

Out of three bottles of Noodler's Kiowa Pecan I bought in 2013(?) – and I actually liked the colour, and use it sometimes – I ended up giving one away as a PIF here. I still have more than 150ml of it at my disposal.

 

All of the above should have taught me not to stockpile the inks that I thought I was going to love and use all the time.

 

So why do I still have three bottles of Sailor Shikori rikyu-cha, just because I heard it was being discontinued in the cheaper 50ml bottles?

 

Do you have easy access to ink samples in Australia? Samples have helped me avoid quite a few purchases that I would have ended up not liking. I currently like or love every ink I own except an almost full vintage bottle of black Parker Quink with Solvx that was given to me. Not sure what to do with that one.

 

Tastes have changed though, so I've sold off the ones I started off liking but ended up not using enough (all my shimmer inks, a couple of Iroshizuku inks, a bottle of Noodlers Black), and I've tried to learn from those shifts in preference. I'll probably never buy another black ink because I just literally never actually WANT to use black, despite liking it. So my bottle of Noodler's Black and Pelikan 4001 Black will likely just sit untouched, despite the fact they are both good inks. It's weird...liking an ink, but never wanting to use it.

Edited February 1, 2019 by sirgilbert357

[A Smug Dill]

Do you have easy access to ink samples in Australia?

Easy, rapid and/or cost-effective access to samples of different brands of ink, no – not commercially, and not by exchange between hobbyists.

 

Samples have helped me avoid quite a few purchases that I would have ended up not liking.

I'm sure it would. Here, we largely have to operate with a different mindset, when domestic (local or interstate) specialist retailers are few, selections more limited, prices tend to be higher, and shipping charges are a killer. With a small number of exceptions (e.g. Pilot Iroshizuku inks), it's cheaper to buy a large lot from overseas with a total amount sufficient to qualify for 'free' international shipping.

[ENewton]

There are a few inks of which I would buy backup bottles if I were about to run out, but the only ink of which I have an extra bottle despite being nowhere near the bottom of my open bottle is Sailor Kobe Suma Purple. I probably wouldn't buy more than one extra bottle of any ink; although many of us have bottles of ink that are years or even decades old, I do not trust newer formulations of ink to last as long as the older ones have.

 

The only ink I have personally had degrade with time was Sheaffer brown, which turned green after twenty years.

[sirgilbert357]

Easy, rapid and/or cost-effective access to samples of different brands of ink, no not commercially, and not by exchange between hobbyists.

 

 

I'm sure it would. Here, we largely have to operate with a different mindset, when domestic (local or interstate) specialist retailers are few, selections more limited, prices tend to be higher, and shipping charges are a killer. With a small number of exceptions (e.g. Pilot Iroshizuku inks), it's cheaper to buy a large lot from overseas with a total amount sufficient to qualify for 'free' international shipping.

Yeah that's kind of what I expected. That's unfortunate. Teaches you to do your due diligence researching the things you buy I bet! I do that anyway most of the time, but I actually enjoy that aspect of "the purchase process" immensely.

[sirgilbert357]

I probably wouldn't buy more than one extra bottle of any ink; although many of us have bottles of ink that are years or even decades old, I do not trust newer formulations of ink to last as long as the older ones have.

Interesting...what makes you feel that way?

[Karmachanic]

A question arises in my mind for the stockpilers, How many 50ml bottles did you empty in 2018?

Edited February 1, 2019 by Karmachanic

[sirgilbert357]

A question arise in my mind for the stockpilers, How many 50ml bottles did you empty in 2018?

I finished two. I currently have two more that are sitting at about 10%.

 

But my query isn't regarding just avoiding running out of common inks; it's more about ensuring you've got a healthy supply of inks that may soon become permanently discontinued. I realize I could have done a better job wording my title and OP. My apologies for that...but I still appreciate the range of answers we are seeing even concerning commonly available inks.

 

ETA: Also, I might be in the minority here; I only have 11 inks total, and 3 of those I never use (the black inks), and one other is just a handful of cartridges (Pilot Blue Black, which I like and might buy a full bottle of eventually). I don't know that it makes a huge difference to those reading this, but for me, running out of my favorite Brown is actually just running all the way out of ALL browns, lol. I have more blues, but I only currently have one brown and only one green. This contributes to my desire to have back up bottles I think...

Edited February 1, 2019 by sirgilbert357