More than a year ago I wrote about my then collection of 1091 Bottles and 47 Litres of Ink and a year and a half before that my 637 Bottles and 33.47 Litres of Ink. Now, moving out of the year that was 2020 I think it is time for another update.

What has changed

Honestly, 2020 has been a rather one dimensional year for additions. I’ve also become more and more fascinated with photography which has taken some of my fountain pen funds so the past two years of ink buying has been less busy. The biggest increase came, not unsurprisingly, from Sailor. 63 additional Sailor bottles in the past two years. Sixteen bottles from the Manyo series, and 3 from the new releases in the Ink Studio series but the rest are stores exclusives from Japan. Diamine increased by forty, but 25 of that is from the Diamine Inkvent calendar. KWZ, J. Herbin were others that increased a bit. A noticeable change (or continuation of change) is the lack of Montblanc inks; only four new Montblanc inks! Back when the LE Montblanc inks were 30ml and when Montblanc only released five or fewer a year I collected each release (sometimes more than one bottle) but when they move to 50ml I started to become a little selective. When Montblanc started to released dozens of new inks or more (especially with so many being a different shade of blue, or the extremely expensive Elixir inks) I sadly stopped paying as much attention. I’ve also added only one Noodler’s ink! I still love Noodler’s bottles and aesthetic but far too often the ink itself leaves a little to be desired and I just don’t need to special characteristics of the ink.

There have been 8 new brands added to the collection, Pennonia, Standard Bindery (no longer with us, sadly), Taccia, Vinta, Seitz-Kreuznach, TOOLS to LIVEBY, Drakon, and Ferris Wheel Press. There’s a 30% increase in ink volume and a 16% increase in total numbers of inks. The inks I bought this two-year period were not the smaller bottles but the more average 50ml type.

The Collection

You can see all the inks on on my Fountain Pen Companion page. I’ve run out of room on my shelving unit! It’s a bit of a nightmare trying to find the right Noodler’s and especially Sailor ink I’m after; I essentially have to take out all the Sailor bottles to find the right one. At least Kobe, Tall, Sailor Brand, and Bungubox are separated. It’s definitely looking messy though. if I had more room to add another shelf I’d stop using the bottom shelf altogether and put other stuff there.

I am counting all Sailor Store Exclusives as under the Sailor branding here and not under the store branding (contrary to what I’m doing with Nick Stewart, or Akkerman SBRE Brown which are made by Diamine). I’m doing this to get a better birds eye picture of the collection. If I did split up all the Sailor brands (which I do outside of this, such as Fountain Pen Companion and my own database) the “Sailor” would split into a further 56 brands (up by 19 from 37 last time), most with only one or two inks, which would just look unwieldy in the already long list. I should explain how I split up brands (used on my Fountain Pen Companion page). I currently have 120 brands by this organisation. When SBRE Brown released his ink SBRE Brown it wasn’t hidden that it was made by Diamine (in openly said so) but the branding and bottle never mentioned Diamine. Akkerman SBRE Brown brands itself as Akkerman. For the former, I have listed it as its own brand, for the latter, under Akkerman. Similarly Because Cult Pens predominantly associated Diamine with their inks, so do I, but La Couronne du Comte doesn’t, so neither do I and I classify them as a separate brand. With Sailor, all the store exclusive inks are specific to those stores known by those store names. Kobe is a good example. Kobe is the series name by the store Nagasawa, made by Sailor. We know it’s made by Sailor but the dominant branding is Kobe by Nagasawa. It is the same with all other Sailor made inks; they predominantly feature their own branding while the manufacturer is just understood. As such all Sailor Store Exclusives generate a new brand. The brand listings below, however, are more inline with manufacture; which brand manufactured the ink. Otherwise there would be far too many brands.

The ‘pride’ of the collection would be the vintage or discontinued inks and the Sailor tall bottles. Three Lamy Dark Lilac; the older Montblanc inks, especially the British Racing Green that was very generously gifted to me; eleven bottles of Parker Penman, including all colours and a Sapphire box; Noodler’s Catalpa, a discontinued Australian exclusive, because it’s story relates to my home town); Sheaffer Kings Gold, some of the Caran d’Aches Colors of the Earth set, OMAS inks, the Bach Coffee Cantata ink from Rohrer und Klingner (classical music, coffee and fountain pen ink? It’s like it was designed for me!) and even the Louis Vuitton inks! I have 81 tall Sailor Bottles, which are my favourite bottle designs. If a hassle-free tall bottle comes up for me to buy, I pretty much do! At least one.

The Colours

I’ve not been deliberately buying blue inks so the percentage of inks that are blue has dropped by around a percentage point (N.B. in the last In Collection updated I separated blue blacks, and light blues but included dark teals as dark blue, confusingly this update simplifies the blues). I got into more details (see table at the end) for colours but this is wildly inaccurate for now. I need to spend some time in 2021 making the colours more accurate. Currently there’s a pale cool green sitting in “Green, Yellow” for some reason! As such the table at the end is not very accurate but the “colour family” chart and tables are accurate.

As we can see below, Blues didn’t increase that much (although by total number they did…). Green and Red had good additions as did Pink and Orange. Even Yellow got a good bump, especially for a colour I rarely use. Once I finished the comparison of 32 black inks I didn’t look too closely again! Purple and Grey are a bit sad though and definitely need correcting in 2021!

Before the photos of each shelf these are the final statistics! In the past two years my ink collection has grown by 16.1%, or by 175 bottles. I’ve definitely slowed down a bit! Cameras and their peripherals are expensive! I’ve stopped buying as many duplicates so they have decreased. 14.3% of the collection, or 179 bottles are discontinued inks; not bad! And my favourite Sailor tall bottles make of 5.5% of the collection.

According two this Australian plumbing website a bath uses around 95 litres of water (or 25 gallons). This US article says 30 gallons (or 113 litres). My ink collection is now almost 61 litres of ink (or 16.1gal) so not quite a bathtub of ink but getting there! I’ve added 14 litres (3.7gal) since the last update or an increase of 29.8%..

Interestingly, in the previous update, I had an additional 454 bottles and 13.5 litres This time it’s only an additional 175 bottles but an even greater 14 litres. I imagine this demonstrates the much smaller Sailor Ink Studio bottles.

Four areas of Sailor and a spot for Pilot. Makes sense for them to be together.

Noodler’s, Organics Studio and Private Reserve. All US inks.

More European these four starting with the German Montblanc (plus stray US Ferris Wheel Press). British Parker, and then French J.Herbin, Louis Vuitton, and Caran d’Ache. Also Waterman.

Definitely more miscellaneous groupings here!

This shelf is Diamine (and Akkerman) and then at the top is samples plus the Diamine Inkventent Calendar, the Diamine Music Set, and the box contains more 30ml Diamine bottles.

The top also has the Robert Oster collection, with other Australian Brands (rands on another shelf.

Finally Colorverse, due to it’s oversized boxes, needs a whole shelf to itself then we have some more miscellaneous inks and old Bookbinders bagged inks.

At the end is some more detailed ink colour designations (but even if more detailed they are less accurate).

I’ve paced myself a little slower this two years but I’ve also had to split the funds with photography equipment. If I ever start gaining an interest in watches, slap me. I refuse to look at them! There will be a Pen Collection Update coming soon as well.

The changes I’d like to make are more greys and purples. I also want to expand the brands a bit more. Tono & Lims, Troublemaker (if they ever catch up to demand; I desperately want a bottle or a few!), Lennon Tool Bar, Color Traveler, even some more Ferris Wheel Press as their unusual inks are interesting. Until 2023!