Most Expensive, Least Expensive, Most Used Ink...

[Noihvo]

[Oldane]

Cheapest: Hero 232. $3.50 for 60ml including shipping from China to Denmark. I bought five bottles about five years ago. Excellent ink BTW, but hard to find at ebay these days..

[WalterC]

Cheapest ink: 1 quart bottle bought at an art store auction for a dollar or two. I think it was Scheaffer blue black. I never cared for it and used it very little; at the time I used Pelikan brilliant black and Waterman Florida blue. It eventually got frozen and got tossed. My most expensive is probably Iroshizuku Yama Budo and Take Sume in 50ml.

[BaronWulfraed]

Haha, I bought one of those 6-packs last year, around $75 incl. s/h iirc. Since I bought it just to get the almost full bottle of Pinkly and wasn't too interested in the others, that might qualify as my most expensive bottle. Next would be the BB L'amant - it was only $42 (for the 50 ml bottle) but then I bought 2 back-ups.

We need a petition drive to induce Levenger to put Pinkly back into production -- I just received a bottle of Taccia Momo, and haven't tried it yet, but in the bottle it looks a bit less... vibrant?

[A Smug Dill]

I've owned a few MB reds (before competition made them improve drastically over the last decade) that were basically Cherry Kool-Aid, couldn't even give them away to enthusiasts

 

 

I think there are some Montblanc fans — or even non-Montblanc users — who'd happily buy the shoe-shaped glass ink bottle for $1. Personally I found it very space inefficient, and for the number of bottles of ink I have, I don't care for waste of space no matter how supposedly pretty or "functional" that inkwell is, when it could only provide service for one ink colour anyway out of close to 250. I was happy to get rid of it and reduce that number by one.

[Uncial]

Most expensive is Montblanc's elixir. I just wanted to try it because its roughly thought to be the same recipe as was used on some of the early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark. Cheapest was a bag of 500 small black carts I got somewhere in Europe for just under 2euro

[torstar]

 

 

I think there are some Montblanc fans — or even non-Montblanc users — who'd happily buy the shoe-shaped glass ink bottle for $1. Personally I found it very space inefficient, and for the number of bottles of ink I have, I don't care for waste of space no matter how supposedly pretty or "functional" that inkwell is, when it could only provide service for one ink colour anyway out of close to 250. I was happy to get rid of it and reduce that number by one.

 

If only you were in my life back then, would have been handed over for free.

 

I have a dozen or so MB shoe-shaped bottles, among my favourite top 3 bottle shapes for filling my pens.

[amk]

My cheapest has to be the 1 litre bottle of Waterman blue for 5 euros I found at a vide grenier. It's *almost* full. That's what, about 30 euro cents a bottle?

[inkstainedruth]

My cheapest has to be the 1 litre bottle of Waterman blue for 5 euros I found at a vide grenier. It's *almost* full. That's what, about 30 euro cents a bottle?

 

That sure beats the similarly sized vintage bottle of Waterman Black I saw at an antiques fair this morning. Maybe a third full at best, and the asking price was $95 US. I "abstained -- courteously" as the the New York delegate in 1776 was wont to say.... ; in truth, though, I looked at the price tag, thought about the FULL 8 oz bottle I'd gotten on eBay of vintage Quink Permanent Violet ($50 + shipping) and the 3/4 full pint bottle bottle of vintage Skrip Peacock I'd found in the wild about six years ago ($12 + tax), thought "$95? YIKES!" and walked away quickly....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[AidenMark]

The cheapest on regular sale in Germany could be school supplier Herliz. Their popular Royal blue ink 'Tinte im Glas Königsblau' is going for 1.95Euro/30ml at some stores. If you factor the cost of the 4001 style glass bottle and VAT then the ink must basically be free.

 

I've not tried it but it I am intrigued that it gets 9/9 good reviews on Amazon.

 

Herliz also have a back ink, but it only seems to be available in cartridges.

Edited January 26, 2020 by AidenMark

[Runnin_Ute]

Most expensive? Most I have paid is about $16-$17. A bottle of Iroshizuku Kon Peki (50 ml) and a bottle of Robert Oster Astorquiza Olive. (50 ml) I only bought the Kon Peki because it was on sale at Target.

 

Most expensive at retail? Edelstein. I have five bottles (4 colors), total cost to me? $0.00. Sapphire, Aventurine, Star Ruby and Olivine (2).

 

I paid the least for the above and bottles of Noodler's Eel Blue and Levenger Pomegranate, and Levenger Amethyst (partial bottles) of which were given to me. (cost =$0.00)

[Bookman]

Most expensive: Graf von Faber-Castell Cobalt Blue--$30.00 ($0.40 per ml)

 

Least Expensive: Noodler's Baystate Blue--$12.00 ($0.13 per ml)

 

Most used: Sailor Jentle Blue

[Doug C]

I rarely use cartridges but some of my pens are cartridge only.

I look a chance on a sale that Birmingham Pen Company had; 100 cartridges for $10!

 

 

I have to say they are really nice and at that price, I don't care if I use the entire cartridge (I tend to switch pens out often)

[Kalessin]

 

...the 3/4 full pint bottle bottle of vintage Skrip Peacock I'd found in the wild about six years ago ($12 + tax)

 

Sheaffer Skrip Peacock Blue is one of my favorite colors. Prices on eBay were $20 per 2oz bottle in spring, summer, and autumn 2019, but now people are trying to get $60/bottle or more.

 

I dream of finding a pint bottle of it, because if you found one, there should be more large bottles out there somewhere... if they ever sold it in 32 oz master bottles, one would probably supply me for the rest of my life.

[corniche]

Greetings Everyone,

 

Most Expensive: At first, I was gonna say Montblanc, but factoring in the "per ml" price; I think its the little bottles of J. Herbin inks.

 

 

Least Expensive: Diamine, (per ml); $6.50 for 80 ml of ink from Cult Pens.

 

 

Most Used: Probably a tie between MB Royal Blue and Eau de Nil from Diamine. (For many years it would had been Quink Permanent Blue).

 

 

Sean

[wallylynn]

Most: Either MontBlanc Midnight Blue Iron gall, $20/50ml about 10 years ago, or $25/4.5oz for Noodler's KTC.

 

Least: 3 bottles of diamine registrars for $21-ish on sale. That might change as I have 2 bottles of Lamy blue on the way for $13 after discount.

[inkstainedruth]

 

Sheaffer Skrip Peacock Blue is one of my favorite colors. Prices on eBay were $20 per 2oz bottle in spring, summer, and autumn 2019, but now people are trying to get $60/bottle or more.

 

I dream of finding a pint bottle of it, because if you found one, there should be more large bottles out there somewhere... if they ever sold it in 32 oz master bottles, one would probably supply me for the rest of my life.

 

Well, after finding it, I know now why people on here would wax nostalgic about it -- almost as much as about PPS. Of course, it took about two days to get it off my hands when I first opened the bottle.... I probably got extremely lucky, because the next time I went back to the place where I found it, I didn't see any pens or ink at all. The place was a little off the beaten track to begin with -- the only reason I knew about it at all was because we had taken a drive in the country one weekend and another place we stopped at told us about it.

The closest I've found to replicate it so far, for color, shading and the sort of edge crispness that some people call "haloing", is Diamine Turquoise.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[kestrel]

Most expensive: Either the one Iroshi I paid full price plus shipping for or the bottles of Colorverse Einstein's Ring I just purchased on sale, sort of.

 

Least Expensive: Per mL was an almost full quart bottle of Parker Royal Blue Quink at $8.00 U.S. Too bad it had faded.

 

Most used? Blakwa because every time I resac a vintage pen that's what it gets for tuning the nib. Second most is Bad Belted Kingfisher because it is in my everyday carry Pelikan. When I was teaching I went through a standard 90 mL bottle of Nikita every three semesters. I used a lot of Nikita.

 

Most valuable ink I own? A bottle with about 20 mL of reconstituted Paul Wirt blue-black. It's not a very good ink in 2020 but then it is probably more than 100 years old.

[JakobS]

Most expensive: A bottle of Pilot Iro Chiku-Rin at full MSRP ($36) from Bloomfield Pen Shop when I was visiting Boston in 2016.

 

Least expensive: A 100ml bottle of Diamine Umber for ~$6.50, followed by a 50ml bottle of R&K Scabiosa for ~$4.50.

 

Diamine Umber is my most used, followed by KWZ IG Gold, and IG Green Gold.

[Anderglan]

Most expensive: MONTBLANC (blue-black, or black, I don't recall).

Least expensive: "M&M königsblau", Metzger & Mendle GmbH, 30ml for EUR 1.89 --- including 20 % Austrian VAT ---it seems to be a German product, but I found it in Austria in a drugstore.

Most used: Lamy inks, both bottles and cartridges, then several Pelikan 4001 inks.