Best Of 2019

[by_a_Lady]

It's that time of the year again!

 

What were your inky highlight this year? Have you perhaps learned something new about your preferences? Have you made any resolutions for the next year? And what would you perhaps like to see next year?

 

 

Dominique

[sombrueil]

I did a lot more inksploring this year. I set aside my tried and trues for awhile and branched out into Birmingham Pens and Sailor. I organized my inks by color!! And having done this I could easily see gaps I would like to fill in. I tried some oranges and true reds and liked both.

 

I also started making my own labels for my bottles -- a swab of the color plus the name written in that ink. Makes organizing and picking much easier (my inks are on a eye-level shelf).

 

I no longer make resolutions, ink or otherwise. I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do, regardless.

[SchaumburgSwan]

It's that time of the year again!

 

What were your inky highlight this year? Have you perhaps learned something new about your preferences? Have you made any resolutions for the next year? And what would you perhaps like to see next year?

 

 

Dominique

 

Hallo,

 

well, highlight of the year is ESSRI!

The most traditional, high IG blue black.

A perfect match to my vintage Swan sac pens I daily use.

Finest and crisp EF lines on good paper, makes bad paper usable, nice blue-black-black.

It's plastic bottle is the only downside, so I filled into a nice glass bottle (Thanks to Akkerman for sending me a wrong ink I could fill elsewhere ;-) ).

 

Second is Akkerman Dou's Emerald Groen in it's fantastic 120 mL bottle...

A great dark green...

 

Third is Diamine Autumn Oak for colorful moments...

 

 

Ideas for next year are

- Iroshizuku Hoteison or R. Oster Grün-Schwarz? But I have and like Diamine Graphite...

- R. Oster Motor Oil as an alternative to their Bronze but less greenish

- Diamine Safari

 

Best

Jens

Edited December 4, 2019 by SchaumburgSwan

[ENewton]

The highlight of my year in ink was finding Rohrer & Klingner Aubergine, an unassuming dark purple that I think will be the staple ink for my Parker 51s from now on.

 

My color preferences have been stable for several decades.

 

Goals for next year are to discover which of my pens will show Sailor Kobe Taisanji Yellow to advantage, and which of my inks will make me love my Pelikan 140.

Edited December 4, 2019 by ENewton

[senzen]

All twenty something inks have found their home in thirty something pens after years of iterations, with a few inks in several pens to get different hues... It's a pleasure to pick up a pen almost at random and be dazzled by the colour, as opposed to wonder if it will work today. Several pens do require special treatment: Parker Sonnets and Lamy Vistas need to be stored upright in individual pouches so the colours reliably come out in the same tone. Obsessive, moi?

 

In particular this year Asa Gao and Ama Iro finally found their home in new Carènes, can't stop writing with them, which is the highest praise I can give. These pens seemed to represent a high risk but in the end just work. I also stopped using cellophane bits between some nibs and feeds, it worked well but was a little messy. I am finally only stocking up on the same inks.

 

So peace at last! Well, I hope. What about you?

Edited December 4, 2019 by SenZen

[OCArt]

My new love is Mont Blanc Permanent Blue. Wonderful, all-around good, well-behaved ink and permanent! My search is for the perfect orange to partially match why orange Pelikan M600 but be highly readable. Have tried three different ones-- darn but online colors don't look like ink on paper!

[twin63]

I became a big fan of Monteverde inks. I received a bottle of Horizon Blue with a pen purchase early in the year and it turned out to be the blue that I had been searching for. All of my daily users/work pens have been inked with Horizon Blue since then.

 

I typically stick to blue, black or blue-black inks, but moved out of my comfort zone and tried Copper Noir, California Teal and Napa Burgundy. I really liked all of them. Now I'm looking forward to testing out some of Monteverde's other colors.

Edited December 4, 2019 by twin63

[JakobS]

I have settled into carrying three pens in my shirt pocket with specific ink, or general use for each. They are as follows:

 

Diamine Umber is my go to ink in a Sheaffer Imperial II Deluxe with medium nib

 

KWZ IG inks with an ocassional mix of one of their standard colors in another Sheaffer Imperial II Deluxe with medium nib

 

A wild card pen, usually an Esterbrook SM Deluxe with various nibs, currently a 9450 with Diamine Damson. I usually will have a Diamine ink in this pen of any color but black. One thing I have established over the years and can say emphatically, is I don't use black ink for writing!

 

Diamine inks make up the foundation of my inks used to write, and many IG inks are in my top ten favorite inks to write with.

 

This has been static for the past three or four years so not limited to 2019, but some thing to realize nonetheless..

 

My ongoing resolution is to limit ink purchases, and use up the almost 70 bottles of ink I have.....should probably switch over to higher ink capacity pens to help that along.....!!

[inkstainedruth]

Oh, there are so many. But I'd say one highlight for me was Iroshihzuku Murasaki-Shikibu. Picked up a bottle of it at one of the tables at the OPS last month before prices went up (I think it was at the Crazy Alan's table -- they had tester pens inked up with all the colors, so I could try the ones I hadn't before, and snagged it along with backups of Kon-peki, Take-sume, and Tsuyu-kusa.

The two LE inks from OPS that were the fundraiser for Central Ohio Pen Club are also pretty nice.

Another one is probably Edelstein Star Ruby, a pink leaning red that is still clearly red.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Intensity]

My trip to Japan earlier this year was amazing. I was able to sample most of the Sailor Ink Studio inks and all of Pilot Iroshizuku inks, along with others. Brought back some super nice paper too. Consequently this year Iroshizuku inks have been a highlight (not new but still great), as well as a bunch of wonderful Sailor Ink Studio inks. Another not-new ink I've discovered and fell in love with was Sailor Jentle / Maruzen Athena Blue-Black.

 

I've also learned that I loved Pelikan Edelstein limited inks: Smoky Quartz and Aquamarine, so now I have bottles of both.

 

And finally I've been able to get a bunch of Graf von Faber-Castell inks, which I also love.

 

Mainly I've revised a lot of my collection and spent a lot of time trying to understand what I was accumulating and why. Consequently I've sold and traded a fair number of inks I used to have and liked--but just never felt like using again for whatever reason. Now I aim to have only inks I am happy to fill with time and time again. Generally those inks are not bright or saturated colors, but on the contrary muted and perhaps even "muddy". They have a lot of nuance: either in form of slight hue variation with shading or dark outline effect, or unusual hues. I no longer care for sheen very much or shiny appearance. I prefer more matte watercolor-like look, even in more saturated cases.

[sciumbasci]

I'm a black ink guy struggling not to go on a spending spree on all the delicious blues and turquoise inks I saw reviewed here over the years (particularly L'Artisan Pastellier)

Edited December 4, 2019 by sciumbasci

[SamCapote]

I'm a black ink guy struggling not to go on a spending spree on all the delicious blues and turquoise inks I saw reviewed here over the years (particularly L'Artisan Pastellier)

 

Give in to the dark side...these are the inks you have been looking for.

[noddle]

1. Let go of my last Noodler ink.

2. Orange-brown-red is my sweetspot in the spectrum.

3. I still don't like blue inks despite countless sampling.

4. Rediscovered Diamine Graphite and how nice it is with a fine nib.

5. Learned to appreciate the joys of good lubrication! [GVFC India Red showed the way].

 

Fourteen samples are coming my way shortly and I hope to expand my abstemious collection to 5-8 inks...

[Uncial]

Sailor 123

Montblanc Petrol Blue

Pen purchase: Pelikan M1005 Stresemann M nib.

[Tom Kellie]

Montblanc Petrol Blue

 

+1

Tom K.

[A Smug Dill]

• My library of commercially available ink colours — all in retail bottles, not samples either bought or given — grew by more than 100%, and by more than 100 bottles, over the course of 2019. I don't imagine that is something that will be repeated in terms of either metric.

   

  Yet nothing has unseated the reigning champions, such as Sailor souboku and seiboku, of yesteryear. Their near-perfect waterproofness, the way in which even their sheen (and they do sheen!) will survive a 60-minute bath is just unrivalled; and I like those colours well enough. Diamine Jalur Gemilang, which I got last year, remains my favourite 'fancy' ink — among monster sheeners, shimmer inks, multi-hued inks, etc. — but the new additions to the Cult Pens exclusive Iridescink line this year, Philip and Christine, are very good.

   

  In particular, Philip is about as close (within my limited awareness of what's on the market) as I can get to a new 'signature' ink to match my (also new) wedding ring, but the quest continues in 2020.

• The exercise of finding the right inks to use on our wedding invitations, reception place cards, and thank-you cards wasn't easy. I've had to test about forty inks in each instance to find something that produced a pleasing colour on the ivory stationery and card stock and didn't feather or bleed-through to the other side. Even Sailor kiwaguro and seiboku, as well as Noodler's X-Feather, failed in that regard. Never did I have to do so much work to choose inks previously, and that's even before actually writing the damn things. That's all done now, phew. Again, it's not a 'highlight' to be repeated after 2019!

• Michael of EndlessPens sent me a bottle of Ferris Wheel Press Bluegrass Velvet ink "as a wedding present" along with one of the orders I placed. That's a kind gesture, a pretty colour, and the retail package is gorgeous. My wife absolutely loves it, and I'm sure in part because it's (nominally) a wedding present; so that really hit the spot so to speak, and I'm very pleased and grateful. (I'm not sure if she'd be keen to find out how much I've spent with EndlessPens just in the last fortnight, though!)

   

  I might actually do a review of that ink this month, given Ferris Wheel Press inks have been scarcely reviewed or discussed on FPN, even though I've pretty much walked away from doing ink reviews all year in 2019.

• I'm pretty chuffed to have finally settled on a new format of offering and sending ink samples, which is also workable for giveaways of worldwide scope. (From 2 January 2020, after a price increase in domestic postage, the difference in cost between sending such a package to an Aussie and to a New Zealander will be A$0.10!) After a long wait due slow and unreliable shipping from Chinese sellers, I finally have all the containers and such on hand, and this successfully delivered pilot has proven that the new giveaway format works.

   

  I'm disappointed, although not entirely surprised, that my previous initiative in 2018 has not proven to work all that well in giving many people a taste of a multitude of different inks, to help them in their product selection and purchase decisions, in spite of 30 different colours, 112 vials and volume (~1.8ml each, so >200ml) of ink in total given away. (I'm not even counting any of the surplus inks in retail bottles in that box!)

   

  I can now work through the question of what to offer like-minded ink enthusiasts, having largely sorted out the how and to whom, in 2020.

[VivaTerlingua]

This was an interesting year for me. From January til July I went all out and bought a bunch of lovely new inks, including a lot of my current favorites. Really discovered that I enjoy vintage pens too, starting a modest collection of Skylines and Vacuumatics. Love them!

 

Then from July til now I just enjoyed what I had, maybe bought 2 bottles in 6 months which is a major ink diet for me. Picked up the new R&K Maroon and Kyo-no-oto Moegiiro just this past weekend.

 

Favorite colors remain unaffected mostly. Still love greys and muddy greens the most. Though I did find inks that I am totally happy with for colors that had eluded me for years: brick (Steenrood) and blackened teal (Monsoon Storm). Mission accomplished. Less so for trying to snag a bottle of KWZI Butterscotch, which was the biggest prize of the year that I was after, sad.

 

Of all the inks I tried and bought this year, my highlights are (Ill limit to just a few):

1. Akkerman Vermeer Steenrood (thanks pgcauk)

2. Nagasawa #19 Kobe Minatogawa Lime

3. Sailor Kingdom Note Dorcus hopei bindolosus and Uca arcuata

4. Colorverse Monsoon Storm

5. Montblanc Swan Illusion Plume, and Homage to Hadrian

6. Rohrer & Klingner Aubergine, Thea, and Lilly

 

Explored a lot of new (to me) brands that I will keep close tabs on in the future, like Taccia, Troublemaker, and 3Oysters. Had a Montblanc ink phase that I probably wont revisit in the future, but I did add a couple bottles to the collection. In the end I kept coming back to my favorite brand: Sailor. And with the Studio line and their other new inks this year, I look forward to what they have in store next.

Edited December 5, 2019 by VivaTerlingua

[aurore]

Visconti Blue.

R&K Salix.

 

Very different inks, both flawless.

[chromantic]

I was most impressed with the Stipulas I got (after trying Saffron last year) - Musk Green, Dark Blue, Fading Grey, Light Blue and, more recently, Purple and Sweet Pink, both for the colors and the performance in my (wet) Pelikans.

 

Honorable mentions go to L'amant, Pinkly!, 1864 Blue-black and MV Sapphire.

 

For a change, I bought some samples this year. Was surprised how much I liked Fuyu-gaki and used the sample up pretty quickly, which spurred me to drag out Kin-mosukei

[peroride]

Feel goods of 2019

• Itoya Kobe Ink Ginza Gold Sepia - in special nibs, should have bought more
• Noodler's Manjiro Nakahama Whaleman's Sepia - in a Noodler's Boston Safety
• Stipula Calamo Verde Muschiato - any
• Maruzen Athena Ink Blue - Pilots, Platinums, Sailors oh my!
• Platinum Carbon Black - Chestnut Safety
• Pelikan 4001 Königsblau - in anything, turns out it's the Itoya Ginza tester ink
• Parker Quink Blue Black in Parker 51
• Waterman Absolute Brown - vintage Watermans
• Aurora Black in Aurora pens

I still have a bit to sample from the recent sales; overboarded on Taccia Hokusai, R&K iron gals

Edited December 7, 2019 by peroride