Giveaway: Iron-Gall Ink Sample Set

[A Smug Dill]

It's time for me to make good on what I've been talking about for a while, now that my order of plastic blunt tip needle attachments of syringes have finally arrived, and all the bits are in place.

 

I'm giving away a set of (~0.75ml) samples of seven iron-gall inks:

• Platinum Classic Ink Cassis Black
• Platinum Classic Ink Forest Black
• Platinum Classic Ink Khaki Black
• Platinum Classic Ink Lavender Black
• KWZ Ink Aztec Gold IGL
• KWZ Ink IG Green #3
• KWZ Ink IG Turquoise

The volume is chosen to match what one would get from an international short ink cartridge, without being strictly being limited by the diameter of the 'nipple' on the feed or post inside the grip section, in case someone has a pen that uses a proprietary format (such as Sailor, Platinum, Pilot and Parker) converter. I will include a 1ml syringe with a 14-gauge blunt tip needle attachment, so the ink can be transferred into the cavity of any converter, empty ink cartridge, the barrels of 'eyedropper' pens, and even some piston-fillers from which the nib and feed can be easily removed by the user to access the pen's ink reservoir.

 

 

 

I intend to send the ink sample set as a large letter (in a corrugated cardboard mailer 'envelope') and not a parcel. Australia Post is perfectly happy to accept the article as just that, when I showed the staff at my local post office. That makes international postage charges for the article not that much (at about 60%) more than domestic postage charges. The only question is whether the recipient's country postal regulations will deem the contents acceptable; I have to fill out a CN22 customs declaration if I send it outside of Australia.

 

In view of this, the way I'm conducting this giveaway is:

• Please express your interest in being the recipient by making a post in this thread before 11 November 2019.
• There is no restriction based on country or geography on expressions of interest. Anyone from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the UK (for example, but not exhaustively) who puts his/her hand up for it will be treated equally.
• The letter mail postage charges will be paid for on my end, thanks to @mariom.
• If you're outside of Australia and you're interested, then you have to include in your expression-of-interest post a link to the part/section of your country's postal regulations regarding dangerous, prohibited and 'non-mailable' items so that I can verify it's OK, since I'm the responsible party for filling out a CN22 customs declaration form for the article.
• I will use a random number generator to select the recipient from all eligible entries on 12 November 2019.

This is the general format of how I intend to do future ink sample giveaways, after a lot of thought and non-trivial investment of effort and funds in getting suitable mailer envelopes, ink containers, syringe needle attachments, etc. together. Right now I've got other ink sample sets in plan for pigment inks, inks of a particular colour family, etc. and I would be open to feedback on what to include in future sets. What will not change is the approximate volume of each ink in a sample set, and the type of ink container to use.

 

However, if anyone has better ideas of how to more time- and cost-efficiently offer others just enough of 'a taste' to decide whether they want to spend money on buying retail bottles of particular inks for themselves, I'm all ears.

[silverlifter]

IG inks are my jam: count me in! Link to postal regulations.

 

Thanks ASD!

[A Smug Dill]

silverlifter, thank you for the link. It seems that sending the ink containers the way I intend to will be OK, by the information on that page.

[Sudharshan_S]

Kindly count me in fo this delight. I have never had any prior experience with iron gall inks since they are prohibitively expensive for me. Here's the link to my country's Postal regulations: https://www.indiapost.gov.in/MBE/Pages/Content/Prohibited-Articles.aspx

[Stainink]

Please count me in and if I win this one, please do not send the syringe since it will fall to the medical tools. Link of regulation https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwj2wLy73tHlAhUTOSsKHbN6D3wQFjAAegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fems.posindonesia.co.id%2Fprohibited.php&usg=AOvVaw0G_kDMR4KIiWV0tVnMIs5v&cshid=1572911142672

[DrDebG]

Wow! What a great PIF! Thank you, A Smug Dill, for such a great offer! In order to give others a chance to enjoy this, I will pass this time.

[A Smug Dill]

  On 11/4/2019 at 11:50 PM, Stainink said:

Please count me in and if I win this one, please do not send the syringe since it will fall to the medical tools. Link of regulation

 

 

Noted. Thank you very much for the information!

[A Smug Dill]

This has been something of a learning exercise for me, finding and reviewing information about what is and is not allowed to be sent where.

To better comply with the Australia Post's and international postal regulations, I've changed the packaging somewhat:

specifically, there is now a felt pouch serving as absorbent material between each sealed liquid container and the exterior container (i.e. corrugated cardboard mailer), and also fulfilling the function of keeping and wrapping the ink containers separately from each other.


A (small?) number of countries either prohibit or restrict the import of syringes (with or without needles). Fortunately, my order of disposable plastic 0.5ml pipettes finally arrived, and they prove usable for transferring ink into the cavity of international standard converters; the tip of the pipette is 2.2mm at its widest (but it fails to be perfectly round), and the bore of the mouth of a international standard converter is 2.4mm. So, I can include one of those instead of a syringe.

[tamiya]

I greatly admire your efforts in this project... I wouldn't have half your tenacity nor patience

 

Not a fan of the tiny insulin syringes, too unwieldy for ink transfer; needle also looks a tad short.

 

If ever you pop into a Daiso take a peek in the cosmetics aisle, they sell very nice syringes with long fat blunt needles that are long enough to reach right into the bottom of short internationals. Syringes are 2.5ml or 20ml, they come in 3 colours of pink, yellow or blue - worth buying.

 

Those squeezy pipettes are great too, exactly what I use for topping up carts. But one squeeze of the bulb only collects about 0.2ml, too messy to squeeze a 2nd time so usually takes 4-5 trips from bottle to cart I get better control from filling just the stem not the bulb, so that's even less effective volume.

[Bibliophage]

  On 11/9/2019 at 3:26 PM, tamiya said:

I greatly admire your efforts in this project... I wouldn't have half your tenacity nor patience

 

Not a fan of the tiny insulin syringes, too unwieldy for ink transfer; needle also looks a tad short.

 

If ever you pop into a Daiso take a peek in the cosmetics aisle, they sell very nice syringes with long fat blunt needles that are long enough to reach right into the bottom of short internationals. Syringes are 2.5ml or 20ml, they come in 3 colours of pink, yellow or blue - worth buying.

 

Those squeezy pipettes are great too, exactly what I use for topping up carts. But one squeeze of the bulb only collects about 0.2ml, too messy to squeeze a 2nd time so usually takes 4-5 trips from bottle to cart I get better control from filling just the stem not the bulb, so that's even less effective volume.

However, that would unreasonably increase the cost to the person giving them away. As for the pipettes, even at .2ml, that's not much time to get your cartridge or converter filled up for a giveaway.

 

If the receiver wants to buy syringes, they can. (They may, like me, already _have_ them)

[chiragkolani]

I am interested for this.

 

Thank You.

 

Postal Regulations

[A Smug Dill]

  On 11/9/2019 at 3:26 PM, tamiya said:

I greatly admire your efforts in this project... I wouldn't have half your tenacity nor patience

 

Not a fan of the tiny insulin syringes, too unwieldy for ink transfer; needle also looks a tad short.

Oh, be assured I've tested it, and the half-inch tubular needle will reach the very tip of the centrifuge tube. Actually, the tip of the 1ml syringe will almost reach, even without the needle; the external diameter of the syringe is narrower than the internal diameter of the centrifuge tube. I'm providing the needle primarily so that ink can be deposited into the cavity of a converter and, yes, I've tested the plastic blunt-tip needle shown in the photo with an international standard converter, and it can indeed reach inside the cavity.

 

  Quote

If ever you pop into a Daiso take a peek in the cosmetics aisle, they sell very nice syringes with long fat blunt needles that are long enough to reach right into the bottom of short internationals. Syringes are 2.5ml or 20ml, they come in 3 colours of pink, yellow or blue - worth buying.

Worth buying for what purpose(s) specifically?

 

I have larger (3ml, 5ml, 10ml and 20ml) syringes, and a bunch of 1.5-inch metal tubular blunt-tip needles in different gauges here. Let's just say I have far more in number and variety than I'm going to need.

 

In the context of the ink samples giveaway(s), I fail to see the relevance or need to reach right into the bottom of short ink cartridges, since I'm not expressly offering either a way to flush cartridges clean with pressurised jets of water, or transferring ink out of short ink cartridges; I'm only providing a tool that will draw every last drop from the centrifuge tube in which I've supplied an ink sample, and can then be used to deposit the ink into a variety of fountain pen ink reservoirs, e.g. past the 'lip' into the space inside the widest part of the hollow tube on a converter.

 

 

  Quote

Those squeezy pipettes are great too, exactly what I use for topping up carts. But one squeeze of the bulb only collects about 0.2ml, too messy to squeeze a 2nd time so usually takes 4-5 trips from bottle to cart I get better control from filling just the stem not the bulb, so that's even less effective volume.

The pipettes I have are graded as 0.5ml, and while they aren't the best made or calibrated instruments, when I tested one earlier tonight, the stem (up to the high mark, near the bulb) easily holds more than 0.4ml. Given that I'm only offering ink samples of ~0.75ml each, it shouldn't take more than two transfers with the pipette to empty the centrifuge tube's contents.

 

  On 11/9/2019 at 6:36 PM, Bibliophage said:

However, that would unreasonably increase the cost to the person giving them away.

Thank you.

• The cost of posting a large letter < 50g to North America by Economy Air = A$3.20
• The cost of posting a large letter > 50g and < 125g to North America by Economy Air = A$8.30
• The cost of posting a small parcel > 20mm in depth (or its narrowest dimension) and < 50g to North America by Economy Air = A$16.00

So I can't see any reason for giving away and including in the packages larger syringes or pipettes that grossly exceed the volume of ink in a sample. There aren't any 1ml plastic pipettes I could find, and in any case I have my doubts as to whether the tips on such (if they're available to buy) would fit inside the mouth of an international standard cartridge/converter, when the 0.5ml pipettes only just make it with roughly 0.1mm leeway.

Edited November 11, 2019 by A Smug Dill

[A Smug Dill]

@silverlifter, you were first to put your name on the list, and Random.org picked the number 1 for me just now. The ink samples are yours.

 

Please let me know your address by private message.

[silverlifter]

w00t!

 

Thank you!

[arellano81366]

That was a nice PIF! Sending love to your country! regards,

[A Smug Dill]

The package has been sent by letter post earlier this afternoon.

 

Thank you to everyone who expressed an interest in receiving the samples.

 

If this gets delivered quickly and safely, then I'll do more ink sample giveaways in this format one.

[A Smug Dill]

@silverlifter, according to Australia Post's generic advice for delivery timeframes to New Zealand, you should probably receive the package in the post by the end of this week.

 

Could you please let me know when you receive it, whether there was any stickers or such indicating it's been opened for inspection by NZ Post or Customs, and whether the contents arrived safely without leakage? Thanks!

[silverlifter]

Will do! NZPost moves at Queensland speed...

[A Smug Dill]

I'm considering putting together the following sets of ink samples as giveaways, in much the same format as this one.

 

Ink Sample Set #2: Blue-black in name, persistent by nature

Noodler's Air Corp Blue Black (partially bulletproof and partially eternal, according to Noodler's Ink) Noodler's 'Prime of the Commons' Blue/Black (bulletproof and eternal, according to Pure Pens/Niche Pens) Pelikan 4001 Blue/Black (iron-gall ink?) Platinum Blue-Black (contains ferrous tannic acid) Rubinato Blu-Nero (not much is made known by the manufacturer, but from my testing it's fairly water-resistant, even after just 10 minutes of being put on the page) Sailor souboku (pigment ink) Sailor seiboku (pigment ink) ----- I can add a sample of Lamy Benitoite, which is marketed as 'document-proof', if I don't have to include a syringe and blunt-tip tubular needle attachment in the package.

Ink Sample Set #3: Pigment inks

Pelikan Fount India Platinum Carbon Black Sailor kiwaguro Sailor souboku Sailor seiboku Sailor STORiA Night Blue Sailor STORiA Magic Purple ----- Sailor STORiA Lion Light Brown Platinum BrunSepia

Ink Sample Set #4: Diamine shop- or market-exclusive sheening inks

Diamine Iridescink Christine Diamine Iridescink Philip Diamine Iridescink Robert Diamine Jalur Gemilang Dimaine November Rain Diamine Purple Rain Diamine Smoke on the Water ----- Diamine Skull & Roses Diamine Iridescink Maureen

Ink Sample Set #5: Monteverde Noir collection

Monteverde Azure Noir Monteverde Coal Noir Monteverde Copper Noir Monteverde Jade Noir Monteverde Mercury Noir Monteverde Mulberry Noir Monteverde Raven Noir Monteverde Ocean Noir Monteverde Rose Noir Monteverde Smoke Noir No syringe will be included with this set.

Ink Sample Set #6: Monteverde Gemstone collection

Monteverde Amethyst Monteverde Charoite Monteverde Erinite Monteverde Fireopal Monteverde Garnet Monteverde Olivine Monteverde Onyx Monteverde Ruby Monteverde Sapphire Monteverde Topaz No syringe will be included with this set. N.B. I have a bottle of Monteverde Moonstone as well, which isn't in the ten inks in the retail 'gift set', but I'd struggle with fitting more than ten of the sample vials I use into the cardboard mailers I use, while also packing sufficient structural protection and absorbent void fill as required. I can swap one of the ten colours out and replace it with Moonstone.

Ink Sample Set #7: Pilot Iroshizuku regular range of 24 colours, part 1

I'll decide later which eight of the 24 go into this set.

Ink Sample Set #8: Pilot Iroshizuku regular range of 24 colours, part 2

I'll decide later which eight of the 24 go into this set.

Ink Sample Set #9: Pilot Iroshizuku regular range of 24 colours, part 3

I'll decide later which eight of the 24 go into this set.

Ink Sample Set #10: Sailor Kujukuri Coast and Kobe INK Story inks

Kobe INK Story #38 Kitanozaka Night Blue Kobe INK Story #44 Sumaura Seaside Blue Kobe INK Story #46 Nagisa Museum Gray Kobe INK Story #52 Shioya Vintage Sepia Kobe INK Story #67 Ogo Farm Green Sailor Kujukuri Coast hakkakuao Sailor Kujukuri Coast hamachidori Sailor Kujukuri Coast hamanasu Sailor Kujukuri Coast katagaishikai No syringe will be included with this set.

Thoughts?

 

I will not send a larger volume (>0.75ml) of any particular ink in a set, and the maximum number of ink samples that can be included for each set is constrained by total weight of the package and the size of the cardboard mailer, but I'm open to assembling the sets differently if they fit into logical themes that people may want to explore before deciding which ink, if any, they want to buy from a retailer if they find it pleasing and fit-for-purpose after experimenting with a sample.

 

What @mariom over-reimbursed me will cover the postage costs for the next two giveaway ink sample sets. I'll decide how to handle the postage costs for the remaining sets, but the amounts are trivial in the grand scheme of things; a cup of coffee in Sydney costs more than what it takes to send a 50g 'large letter' overseas.

[yazeh]

What a generous offer.

I've used some of the Diamine and really like and recommend them.

Personally, I would be interested in the Pilot/ Kobe ink selections, as my only Japanese experience has been with Sailor Doyou....