Diamine Inkvent (Red edition) Calendar 2021

[A Smug Dill]

Is anyone here planning on getting this year's Diamine Inkvent (Red edition) calendar?

 

Instead of twenty-four 7ml bottles of ink, this time it comes with twenty-four 12ml bottles. The twenty-fifth bottle is still 30ml.

 

Both Cult Pens and La Couronne du Comte have already added the product to their catalogues and taking pre-orders, and LCdC covered it in its newsletter sent out yesterday. Cult Pens says, ”Expected September”; whereas LCdC says “Available October 2021”. Given past performance, I know which retailer I'd go with, given their track records of delivery, if I wanted a jump on everyone else to review the inks on social media.

 

Except I won't be ordering it at all.  May as well sit back, wait for others to do the reviews, and then only buy specific colours in large bottles as standalone products, when they're released in several months' time.

[tde44x]

I've decided to wait and see the colors and then probably order a few 😉 of the inks in full sized bottles.

[TSherbs]

No way would I ever buy into a commitment for 25 inks (@12 ml per item). I am far too picky and stingy. But I will peek now and again at the selections in case there are one or two I am interested in sampling at a later date. 

[goodpens]

I’m holding out for the Chanukah version—8 small bottles and one large one. 

[amberleadavis]

I didn't buy the first one, but my beloved friend @webgeckos gave me one.  Now, I'm going to find out if I'm so in love with the ink a day thing that I should acquire more ink.  I must admit that during the pandemic, my ink usage went up, but I found I used fewer colors.

[I-am-not-really-here]

It is too soon to think about Christmas.  
 

 

[amberleadavis]

You inspired me to open up the last calendar.  

 

So, those little bottles are SMALL, but they are darn cute.  Sorry the picture is out of focus.  I've already removed the bottles so it's too late to retake the photo. 

 

The problem is that $90 price tag with inks that I may never use.  That's $0.45 / ml ($90 / 198 ml) compared to the usual $0.09 / ml  ($6.97 / 80 m for standard inks) on www.cultpens.com website as I type.  Truly those little glass bottles must be more expensive to make and fill and must require a lot more effort, but how much effort?  Compare that $90 (for 198ml) price tag to the $117.75 cost if you could buy all the inks in the 30 ml bottles (750 ml).  Of course, you can't buy these inks in the small bottles, and the Inkvent big bottles sell for $9.41 instead of $6.97. 

 

So, ultimately, if you want to try 25 brand new Diamine inks, this is the cheapest way to do it, and that price tag is still cheaper than the JH 1670 inks, but then not all of these inks shimmer or sheen.

 

Though, I'm not sure that I would ever use another big bottle of yellow / gold ink;  I know I'll never use all of my blue inks, but I admit, I enjoyed playing with the new gold and a new set of blues, plus I would not have found Winter Miracle, my current favorite, if not for an FPNer doing reviews.

 

So, if I have extra money after paying for kids...and kids presents ... well, I'd love to see one under the tree.

 

EDIT - now that I see the bottles are going to be bigger, I'm more excited!

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

14 minutes ago, amberleadavis said:

That's $0.45 / ml ($90 / 198 ml) compared to the usual $0.09 / ml  ($6.97 / 80 ml) or $0.16 / ml ($4.71 / 30ml) on www.cultpens.com website as I type.

 

Well, for the Inkvent Blue Edition inks — now available as standalone products in 50ml bottles — the prices are £6.64, £7.50 and £9.16 per bottle (exclusive of tax) for ‘standard’, sheening, and shimmer inks respectively. It isn't exactly fair to expect all or any of these inks to be priced on the same basis as Diamine Oxblood (in either 30ml or 80ml bottles), or use that as the reference for assessing the cost impact of the Inkvent calendar's retail packaging format.

 

14 minutes ago, amberleadavis said:

…‹snip›… Of course, you can't buy these inks in the small bottles, and the Inkvent big bottles sell for $9.41 instead of $6.97.

 

They're not even the same-sized bottles. A 50ml bottle of Diamine Shimmertastic ink is £7.46, so there is still a premium on the Blue Edition shimmer inks, although that's possibly (partly) on account of the fancier bottles for the latter.

 

Anyway, the Inkvent Red Edition is £62.50 ex tax, but the small bottles hold are 12ml instead of 7ml each, so I guess there's less of a premium being charged this time around, quite likely from Diamine learning something from the market response to the first Inkvent calendar product.

[amberleadavis]

2 hours ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

It is too soon to think about Christmas.  
 

 

 

Not when you have kids. 

 

[migo984]

There’s a post on Reddit with a list & description of the colours. 7 or 8 are shimmer, (and a number of others sound very generic).  I passed on the first Inkvent, without regrets, and as I dislike shimmer inks, I’m going to wait until they inevitably release individual bottles.

[amberleadavis]

17 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Well, for the Inkvent Blue Edition inks — now available as standalone products in 50ml bottles — the prices are £6.64, £7.50 and £9.16 per bottle (exclusive of tax) for ‘standard’, sheening, and shimmer inks respectively. It isn't exactly fair to expect all or any of these inks to be priced on the same basis as Diamine Oxblood (in either 30ml or 80ml bottles), or use that as the reference for assessing the cost impact of the Inkvent calendar's retail packaging format.

 

As you typed, I went and revised my numbers.  I confess, I've acquired more than one bottle of of the Blue Edition inks and I've loved the crazy bottle and I adore the ink.  Do I think that Winter Miracle (blue edition) is worth $2.50 a bottle more than Sargasso Sea?  (a standard ink).  Well, I think the answer is yes because I own 3 bottles of DWM and 2 bottles of DSS. 

 

You are right in that you are paying for the packaging, but you are also paying for trying inks that you would never buy in large bottles.  I think that's a pretty cool experience.  Now, let's look at it from another cost factor.  At Goulet the cost for a Diamine standard ink 2ml sample is $1.75 and the shimmer inks are $2.  So, for the new Red Edition inks we would be looking at 3 Goulet Samples / one REd sample so that REd small bottle would cost $5.25.  That means that this calendar is a bargain at $90 when the ink samples (instead of whole bottles) would cost you $131.25.

 

You are correct that you aren't buying this package for the budget conscious.  On a budget the Diamine standard inks are a great buy.    This experience is about 25 new inks.

[A Smug Dill]

I can't find an authoritative record of Cult Pens's tax-exclusive price back in 2019 for the Inkvent Blue Edition calendar, but there are a couple of mentions of it found in blogs giving the figure of £67 — which would be the VAT-inclusive price — so I guess it was £55.83 then.

[amberleadavis]

11 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

I can't find an authoritative record of Cult Pens's tax-exclusive price back in 2019 for the Inkvent Blue Edition calendar, but there are a couple of mentions of it found in blogs giving the figure of £67 — which would be the VAT-inclusive price — so I guess it was £55.83 then.

 

I priced it in the US at the time and it was sold out when I went to buy it, but it was about $90 plus shipping and I thought it was too expensive. It sounds like this version is a better value, though it should not be confused for a budget item.

[A Smug Dill]

7 minutes ago, amberleadavis said:

Do I think that Winter Miracle (blue edition) is worth $2.50 a bottle more than Sargasso Sea?

 

50ml bottle of Winter Miracle (shimmer ink) is £9.16 = £0.1832/ml

50ml bottle of Arabian Nights (shimmer ink) is £7.46 = £0.1492/ml

80ml bottle of Sargasso Sea is £4.92 = £0.0615/ml

 

So, ignoring any differences in the cost/value of the container, Winter Miracle is 298% the price of Sargasso Sea on a per unit volume basis, but then a shimmer ink (irrespective of whether it is also sheening by design) in the Shimmertastic product line would be 243% the price of Sargasso Sea per unit volume. Winter Miracle is 22.8% more expensive than (for example) Arabian Nights, which isn't that much of a premium, especially if one's touted expressly as sheening whereas the other isn't, and the user is into sheen.

[amberleadavis]

On 8/3/2021 at 10:28 PM, A Smug Dill said:

 

50ml bottle of Winter Miracle (shimmer ink) is £9.16 = £0.1832/ml

50ml bottle of Arabian Nights (shimmer ink) is £7.46 = £0.1492/ml

80ml bottle of Sargasso Sea is £4.92 = £0.0615/ml

 

So, ignoring any differences in the cost/value of the container, Winter Miracle is 298% the price of Sargasso Sea on a per unit volume basis, but then a shimmer ink (irrespective of whether it is also sheening by design) in the Shimmertastic product line would be 243% the price of Sargasso Sea per unit volume. Winter Miracle is 22.8% more expensive than (for example) Arabian Nights, which isn't that much of a premium, especially if one's touted expressly as sheening whereas the other isn't, and the user is into sheen.

 

 

I like WM for the weird sheen and the great color.  Oh, and it performs flawlessly, but like Sargasso Sea which I adore for mixing and the color, it is difficult to clean.  I do like sparkly inks and sheeny inks but I really buy for COLOR.  I like the idea of 25 new colors.  Not that I have a color addiction or anything. 

[Dione]

It's nice that the Red Edition inks will be issued in those slightly bigger 12ml plastic bottles.

[amberleadavis]

1 minute ago, Dione said:

It's nice that the Red Edition inks will be issued in those slightly bigger 12ml plastic bottles.

 

Oh drat, they are going to be plastic?  The glass bottles are so darn convenient.

[Dione]

4 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

 

Oh drat, they are going to be plastic?  The glass bottles are so darn convenient.

This is what it says on the Cult Pens web site: "Behind each of 24 of the doors is a bottle of 12ml ink" and they name the colors: Seize the Night, Garland, Peach Punch, Party Time, Vintage Copper, Night Shade, All the Best, Ash, Storm, Winter Spice, Raspberry Rose, Festive Joy, Wonderland, Subzero, Red Robin, Thunderbolt, Pink Ice, Black Ivy, Brandy Snap, Stargazer, Tempest, Ruby Blues, Yuletide, Candle Light and Harmony.

[A Smug Dill]

On 8/2/2021 at 8:35 PM, A Smug Dill said:

Except I won't be ordering it at all.

 

I changed my mind, now that I found a way to stack a couple of discount offers, and reducing the effective cost (delivered to Australia, as part of a slightly larger order) to below A$100. Consider it order padding for the much cheaper items I wanted to get, just to reach the free international shipping threshold, haha!

[inkstainedruth]

On 8/3/2021 at 10:09 PM, I-am-not-really-here said:

It is too soon to think about Christmas.  
 

 

Not for retailers it isn't.  

Years ago I used to work part-time in a local Jo-Ann Fabrics, and the Christmas fabrics went out on the sales floor around the 4th of July to give the crafters a head start in making Christmas presents and decorations.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth