September 20, 2014

• Inky Day.

  Having read a few times now on the newly issued color of J.Herbin 1670 line of inks, Stormy Grey, I knew that I’m hooked.  All because I’m a big fan of grey colored inks AND this particular edition includes flakes of gold in it, just like its cousin Rouge Hematite, which I already have.

  It’s been a long while since I last drool over fountain pens and inks that I come across online.  Or parading my fountain pen and ink collection by blogging about them.  Now I get all nostalgic and itching to play with my oversized collection.

  While I can’t get Stormy Grey out of my head, I came to a realization that I have a group of J.Herbin ink bottles sitting patiently in one of my ink drawers, still new and unopened.  Feeling giddy like a little boy who’s about to unwrap his stash of candies and comic books, I decided that today will be the day that I shall return to my old crazy geek self.

  My tired eyes quickly widen within few seconds after I found the dust covered J.Herbin ink boxes, all stacked and lined in a row.  I immediately took them bottles out of their packaging and lined them up on my desk.  I got curious and eager to find out how different the actual color of the ink content in comparison to the color label on their packaging, and so I grabbed my one and only J.Herbin glass dipping pen.

  

  Ink bottles fully shaken, glass pen cleaned, and a supply of cleaning water and towel ready at hand, I tested each one of them French inks on a white adhesive labels, which I later placed on top of the lid of each one of them ink bottles.  I then lined up their boxes, showing the color labels side up, to compare.  Here they are side by side.

  

  It is obvious that the color labels on the packaging are misleading.  Few are pretty close, but the rest certainly are not what the color labels exemplified.  The hair on my arms all stood up upon my panic realization that this could be the same case with all other ink brands.

  I suddenly remembered that I have a stash of unopened Sailor inks.  I decided to give them a go and see how the colors would turn out on paper.  Unlike J.Herbin ink bottle packaging, Sailor color label is not as apparent on the packaging box.  Instead, the ink colors are shown on the label of the bottles themselves.  So just as I have done with J.Herbin inks, I tested all of my Sailor inks and lined them up.

  

  Again, the actual color of these Japanese inks don’t exactly match the color label on the bottles.  However, I’m less disappointed this time.  Only because these Sailor special edition ink colors turned out more saturated than the French competitor, thus seem more interesting in comparison, though equally pricy.

  Feeling all hyped with this ink testing, I decided to continue the exercise with my other inks.  I took out my collection of Noodler’s inks.  Some used, some unopened.  I gathered them together, tested the colors of the inks, and labeled them bottles.  Just like Sailor, this American ink brand produces saturated ink colors.  But when it comes to Noodler’s, one can’t ever rely on the packaging box or bottle labels to identity the real color of the ink content, because the box will always be plain white and the bottle labels will always be colorful and artistically done.

  

  One very interesting fact about Noodler’s ink company is that they would produce a special group of colors for certain countries, which won’t be available in any other countries.  Not even in the United States, where the inks are made.  I got two bottles of Noodler’s ink that are made exclusively for Taiwan, which I purchased during my Taiwan trip a couple of years back.  Love the labels.  Complete with a drawing picture of the country, and some Chinese writings.

  I have more ink bottles in my collection to go through.  Some British ones, some more French ones, some German ones, some Italian ones, and some more Japanese ones.  But only 2-3 bottles for each brand name.  I actually got my eye on more ink brands and colors I have yet to own, but decided that I should stop, considering the extensive ink collection I currently have would probably last me my entire lifetime to finish.  And I don’t even write that much.  Unless, I decided to donate at last half of my collection.  Hhmmm… this is worth pondering.

  • 12:34 pm
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