…and the feed dropped a blob of ink when I set the pen on my desk, so now I know where the leak is. Sigh. I can take a fountain pen apart and put it back together, but I really don’t like doing it myself unless absolutely necessary. (I also don’t build plane models or paint war figurines, and can barely be trusted with Legos.)
Writer’s Blood might look brown or almost black here, but it’s a deep and lovely burgundy. Every year Diamine has a contest on /r/fountainpens where they create a new ink based on voter choice, and this was the winner one year. (Earl Grey was the first winner and I have that too — it’s also nice, but for not-quite-black-or-blue-needs my favorite is DeAtramentis Charles Dickens — I love the grubby fog-green.) C has given me Diamine’s last two Inkvent calendars, which I’ll swatch for you at some point. My recent trip to Kinokuniya had a Daiso next door, which is a fantastic place to get cheap but excellent notebooks and swatch cards.
I don’t really have a signature or even a favorite ink. I collect the J. Herbin Special Collection inks mostly because they look very nice on my shelf and are fun to mess around with. Most important, they come out infrequently enough that I can keep up — though I am missing Shogun still. Pelikan and Lamy run a similar game — new color every year — sometimes I indulge, sometimes not. I have a ton of small bottles of Diamine because see above. I keep lots of Pilot cartridges around because hey, sometimes I’m in a hurry. And I have a couple of bottles of Pilot Iroshizuku because, well, look at them.
At this stage I’m mostly looking for where I might be missing a color or hue. That’s how I got most of my Sailor inks, which are also universally well-behaved when it comes to writing and maintenance. There are also a few inks I would like to try. I’ve never used the legendary Bungubox. I have and like some of Birmingham Pen’s offerings, but haven’t tried anything from their newer lines, and have a particular eye on Interstellar Bronze. Finally, even though it’s expensive and the brand’s boxes take up a lot of room, I really wish I’d bought Colorverse Dark Energy when I had the chance. (I know, it looks a lot like Writer’s Blood.) And the year Lamy did Petrol? Should have bought it all.
Wistfully, E