Is ink overpriced?

[lamarax]

...Lagavulin & Oban fan here...

[inkstainedruth]

1 hour ago, Mark from Yorkshire said:

Laphroaig is technically a highland whisky or like talisker is from the west coast IE Highlands and Islands. What I think you mean is is a speyside which is lighter

Maybe.  But peaty is peaty.  Some people apparently like it, but I never have.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Eldan]

2 hours ago, Mark from Yorkshire said:

Laphroaig is technically a highland whisky or like talisker is from the west coast IE Highlands and Islands. What I think you mean is is a speyside which is lighter

This is true...Laphroaig is classified as an Islay whisky. Anyway, if a nice peaty Islay whisky is not available I'll take a dram of your Macallan or whatever you've got.

[welch]

Think of it this way: I used to buy Sheaffer Skrip for about .25 for a two-ounce bottle in the early 1960s. 

[inkstainedruth]

Yeah, and I remember my mom's story about when she was a freshman in college and the biology professor always ran a car trip down to Florida over Christmas break (this would have been around the winter of 1939) and she said that the professor had calculated down to the penny how much food/gas/motels would cost (and I presume possibly also tolls).  And my mom talked people into going someplace "nicer" for Christmas dinner -- and because the place had a BAR?  Dinner cost 50¢ apiece instead of the "normal" 35¢ apiece.... 

Of course I also remember when I was a kid, and the price of a first class postage stamp went from 4¢ to 5¢....  And what is it now?  75¢ I think....  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth 

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have somewhere near a 100 inks; 80-85 bottles, the rest in cartridges. Edelstein has finally drifted up over €20, so has to be a great ink for me to buy it, and that only because I have 12-15 bottles...mostly bought at the introductory price of €16; expensive, but I buy singlemalts. MB slid up from 13 to 15, then jumped from €15 to 19 in one year, and the very next year to €23, because they had to keep up with the Jones.

Here in Germany, Iroshizku inks costs €35. Cd'A and GvFC cost north of €30. So MB had to start price gouging to prevent someone from thinking they make a cheap product.

Fifteen or so years ago, I thought MB's €12 and then €13 vs 4001's €3.50 and Lamy's @€4.00. Waterman was about that price too.  With Edelstein, I end up paying a lot for a pretty bottle...of ink, or decanters.

 

I have too many decanters...I have to print, and cut and paste what is in them, on the bottom. Those porcelain, or pewter bottle labels don't help when one has 7 or so scotches, the same in gins or rums, and they only say scotch, gin, rum or whiskey. This 2/3rds the decanters I have.

The top of this if filled with 3/5ths decanters also.

 

It's no wonder I find ink so expensive...in sometimes the whiskey in the decanters are not as expensive as the decanter.

 

There are whiskey snobs in the world. Somewhere with in the last year, one had blogged he'd never touch something as horrible as Johnny Walker Red. I immediately disregarded anything he had to say....a pure $$$purse taster.

 

In the 1970's Consumer's Reports had a blind tasting. Johnny Walker Red won for scotch....of course we didn't have the basic 100 bottles of single malt scotch of now. (Back in the day we only had 5-6 single malts only.) ........but having read that, kept that in mind, so I always have a bottle of Red. That I like Blue more is of course. Some day this year, in perfect weather, I'll have a shot in a snifter glass. But there are times I like Red better than Black.

 

By the way, in that test, distilled water mixed with straight grain alcohol beat all the vodkas also back in the day when Smirnoff was the best. What a simple life of lack of choise.

IMO anything drink made with vodka, can have some taste if made from gin, white rum, or even tequila. I have a long unopened bottle of (cheap) vodka, in I drink Virgin Marys, more than Bloody Marys.

[Wahl]

JW Red is a great scotch, and Pelikan 4001 bought in liter bottles is a good, cheap ink

 

I will keep my hard earned euros for expensive vintage pens.

[mulrich]

Considering you can get a ballpoint pen basically for free, everything in this hobby is probably overpriced if you only look at things in terms of utility. But hobbies are about more than optimal value propositions but what something is worth to us individually. In that light, alcohol has zero value to me and never will so I will never spend a penny on it nor would I touch it if given to me for free. 

[LeakyInk]

Should we consider ink prices to anything else prices? I know a little bit has been done already.the only alcohol that might of (actually happened) with me when i was a baby with teething issues. When i was going to vo-tech (high school) my grand mother told me alcohol was rubbed on my gums/teeth which supposedly numbs those areas for babies and possibly and anybody else. I am now 51 and since being a baby (at a baby's age at least) alcohol never got in my mouth nor past my lips

 

And comparing a novelty or specialty liquid to anything else have you noticed the price of gas lately? 30+ years ago with $20 i could fill the gas tank of an 8 cylinder engined car for a week's worth of driving, have a meal at a diner, snacks throughout the day and night and go somewhere to hangout with my friends. Now gas costs near $4 a gallon and a fill up is minimum $36 for most vehicles. And ink (until companies jack up prices fakely because of possible tarrifs) is expensive. A quick internet search and my poor mathing skills a gallon of Ferris Wheel Press ink would cost $4158 (most US vehicles have 12+ gallon gas tanks and trucks over 20 gallon sized tanks), which is 189 bottles of their 20ml sized bottles. Really? I could buy 2 used vehicles and fill their gas tanks and enjoy a meal out with my people with those doll hairs (goofy American term for dollars) with the cost of 1 gallon of ink.

 

But that much ink could be used by a towns people throughout their lives and there will be some left over.