637 Bottles and 33.47 litres of Ink

Ikea shelving unit

It took a while but I finally cleaned the space around my ink shelf and and arranged the bottles somewhat to take a photo of the entire collection. The title is a bit untrue because as of these photos, 619 bottles of ink were on the shelf (well, one I forgot was on my desk) but I have 18 bottles of ink that are on the way as well making for a total of 637 bottles (593 if you discount the 44 duplicated). That’s around 33.47 litres (8.84 gallons) of ink. I have an additional 99 samples and swatches of 165 inks that I have neither bottles nor samples of. In total I have 858 swatches of unique inks.

I don’t have as nice a presentation of my inks as the ink collector that Inquisitive Quill managed to see but it’s much nicer than it used to be! I’ve divided the the shelves loosely by brand or country of origin. But only loosely. Australian inks are on the bottom shelves (only because I got to them last!) German inks are mostly in the same shelf, French inks are mostly in the same shelf, and so are Italian and Japanese (mostly). Sailor is spread over 3 shelves, Noodler’s over 2 and Montblanc and Diamine get one shelf each.

There is *no* direct sunlight whatsoever.

Brand Count
Sailor 105
Noodler’s 92
Diamine 84
Robert Oster 81
Montblanc 41
J. Herbin 17
Private Reserve 16
KWZ 15
Organics Studio 14
Rohrer & Klingner 14
Pelikan 11
De Atramentis 9
Lamy 9
Pilot Iroshizuku 9
Blackstone 8
Bookbinders 8
Caran d’Ache 8
OMAS 7
Parker 7
Akkerman 6
Miscellaneous 6
Kyo-iro 6
Kyo-no-oto 6
L’Artisan Pastellier 6
Graf von Faber-Castell 5
Toucan 4
Van Dieman’s 4
Visconti 4
Aurora 3
Franklin-Christoph 3
Monteverdi 3
Papier Plume 3
Platinum 3
Camlin 2
Louis Vuitton 2
Pilot 2
Waterman 2

The collections comes in at 41 unique brands (including all Sailor made store exclusives as “Sailor) and the break down by colours puts blue at one ink shy of double the next largest. In the collection 81 bottles are of discontinued inks.

Colour Count
Blue 123
Green 62
Brown 55
Purple 48
Red 42
Blue Black 36
Magenta 31
Black 30
Light Blue/Turquoise 29
Pink 29
Teal 22
Yellow 10
Misc 8
Blue-Purple 8
Burgundy 8
Orange 8

I like blue; a count clearly 152 if you include Turquoise and Light Blue. I’m not a huge fan of greens though and I have 62 of them so I don’t know how that happened. And 30 black‽

The numbers:

637 Inks

44 Duplicates

81 Discontinued Inks

33.47 Litres

99 Samples

857 Swatches

41 Brands

58 Pens


Comments

9 responses to “637 Bottles and 33.47 litres of Ink”

  1. Napalm Candy Avatar
    Napalm Candy

    I didn’t know Robert Oster made that many inks! I’m so jelly :3 I’ve never seen a collection of this caliber; outstanding!

    1. Yagan Kiely Avatar
      Yagan Kiely

      And they are about to double with the InkArt.ink selection just announced!

  2. The Australian inks are "Down Under"!

    1. Yagan Kiely Avatar
      Yagan Kiely

      Ha! Very nice.

  3. Ramblings frm Avatar
    Ramblings frm

    Wow, this is a very impressive ink collection! I love the colour breakdown and analysis. You mentioned that you are not a huge fan of greens, yet you ended up with so many hahaha. I was curious if you have an ink purchasing process, or is it like Pokemon – ‘gotta catch em all"? 😀

    1. Yagan Kiely Avatar
      Yagan Kiely

      Thanks! I am a fan of Parker Penman Emerald and I like the odd yellow-green (such as MB Dafoe and KN Tanna Japonensis) but in general I’m not a huge fan :/ My purchasing process is kinda buy what I like the look of (sheen and shading are characteristics I like!) but also to fill gaps in the spectrum if I notice them. I did also try to collect as many interesting Noodler’s bottles (often the label alone is enough!). My focus now is definitely Sailor and Montblanc. I also try to keep up with LE releases and discontinued inks if I find them at a good price!

  4. supernat Avatar
    supernat

    oh my gosh, this is AWESOME!

  5. Allan Avatar
    Allan

    And I thought I was a hoarder, but you take it to a different level! I have less than 300 bottles…. Well done. I figure that if you are a heavy user then you should be good for the next 91 years or so (1ml/day).

  6. Susan Avatar
    Susan

    "Mustn’t envy, mustn’t envy…." Impressive! I hope they bring you much joy always!

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