J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary Ink Bleu Ocean

Things are hustling and bustling over here! We’ve had our grand re-opening this weekend, and that first Saturday we were open, there was a lot of, “oh yeah, converters, right…we need those to sell with the pens” or “hmmm right…those notebooks come in dot grid and ruled…”, We had a busy Monday with errands and some family obligations, but there’s no rest for the weary!

I kind of thought that after we opened, it would be all settled and we could relax and enjoy some coffee while sitting back in the new shop. There are still ink samples to be made, a few items lost in the wilderness of half-unpacked boxes that need to be rescued, some scary looking boxes of “miscellaneous” goods. I think Jon’s biggest disappointment in moving here is that the coffee machine is in the apartment, so he has to leave the shop, walk through the packing area and into the apartment to refill his mug…

We have a few boxes of inventory from some of our distributors, and we have more expected soon, which we’re really looking forward to. We tried to keep our stock as even as possible gearing up for the move, but now that we’re here, we’ve been scrambling to fill up the missing stock.

But the big news is that we just got our shipment of J. Herbin’s 1670 Anniversary Bleu Ocean! We’ve had a lot of questions about these inks and when they were coming, but we’ve been a little distracted by the moving.

If you’ve been in our new shop, you’ll know that there are four steps down from the entrance. When the Canpar delivery man arrived with the two giant boxes of ink stacked on his trolley, he and I both looked down the steps. I was going to call Jon to help him lift the boxes down the steps, but before I could, the Canpar guy just wheeled them right now, with an oomph and a bump at every step. I almost had a heart attack. I mean, it’s not that I have trust issues with all new delivery people on this side of town, but…that’s some exciting ink I’ve got packed in those boxes.

The Bleu Ocean is a reformulation of one of the now three 1670 Anniversary Inks from J. Herbin. Rouge Hematite has been around for a while, a rich red ink with goldish green sheen, which I used for basically all of my Christmas cards. Stormy Grey came last year, grey with gold flakes, and there was a bit of a crazy rush to grab those few bottles in the initial shipment, but we’ve got more now. The grey is really also a beautiful ink because there aren’t too many great grey inks, and this one has some really spectacular gold in it.

They’ve just released this new Bleu Ocean, which is a blue with gold flakes. One day I’m going to convince Jon I need an Ahab for each of these inks and do some side by side comparisons, but for now I just have the one Ahab, and I don’t think I can bear to flush out this Bleu Ocean in it right now…

It’s a dark, rich blue, but really, if you’re getting this ink, it’s for those gold flakes…

The writing samples above were with my old trusty Ahab, on Rhodia 80gsm paper.

Even just the bottles for these 1670 Anniversary Inks are beautiful! It’s a square bottle with a thick, heavy glass base. It has a waxed cap and also a wax seal on the front with the 1670 imprint. The wax on the cap is pretty soft, so you will probably be able to open it without breaking or cracking the cap.

This is “perfect” for a work ink with a little pizzazz – you know, if your boss can handle a little shimmer in life 🙂

And, as a side note, after we posted the video of the moving of the furniture to set up the shop, we’ve had a few customers comment to Jon that they were impressed by all the furniture moving he did and how manly he is and how tired he must be. Jon has just accepted these compliments like there’s nothing to it. I just want to point out that while it appears that Jon is doing most of the moving, if you look closely at 0:58 of the video, there is some mysterious ghost moving that vintage sewing desk around, and that ghost would be ME. That’s right, me, moving furniture, while taking pictures. Multi-tasking.

Winter Ink Shipping (#Canadianproblems)

It’s that time of year!

Temperatures are beginning to dip, and we’ve had our first few snowfalls. It’s the time of year when Canadians buck up and take it in the chin (or cower near the rad, growing paler day by day…).

This means a couple of things if you’re ordering ink online!

1. We are going to be sending orders containing ink – ink bottles, samples or cartridges (even if you order a pen that comes with a single cartridge!) – to the post office for pick up. Your delivery person should be leaving you a card to let you know it’s there, but you can also follow along with the tracking info we send.

This is even if you know that you or a family member are going to be home, or if you live in an apartment or condo. Your delivery person does not carry all of the mail for their entire route when they leave the sorting facility. Canada Post sorts mail and packages to be dropped off in the grey “pick-up boxes” along a mailman’s route. Your mailman picks up that section of the route’s mail as they progress, and the time between the package being left in the grey pick up box, and your mailman actually delivering it could be a while – in fact, while it should not happen, it could even be overnight.

Please note that inks expand as they begin to reach freezing, so even as the inks reach 10 degrees, 5 degrees, the liquid is expanding. It is not only after temperatures reach 0 degrees and lower.

2. Diamine ink bottles have a particular weakness for chilly temperatures, and unfortunately, we’re going to be pulling our Diamine inks out of commission very soon, as the weather drops more and more. If you can no longer order it online, it means temperatures throughout Canada are too low to ship Diamine. We have tried our best, but even with sending these bottles to the post office, extra layers of bubble wrap, “do not freeze” stickers, and a kiss for good luck, there are too many broken Diamine bottles for us to continue sending them out in the winter. We are truly small business, and we just cannot absorb the loss of so many bottles as well as potential damage to other items in your shipment.

3. If you purchase a bottle of ink from us, you may receive it with a small portion siphoned out into a plastic vial. This is to protect the bottle from cracking or breaking if the ink inside expands too much.

4. We will do these precautions automatically, at our discretion, and based on our experience with other shipments in your province or town. If you would prefer to have us do something differently, please make a note in the order comments, at your own risk!

5. At the risk of sounding like a pushy salesman, I might encourage you to consider your ink purchases sooner rather than later. Reason one is that your ink has the highest chance of getting to you safely and we can both breathe easier knowing that ink has not been spilt in vain. Reason two is that not being able to ship out ink also means we won’t be able to get ink in from our distributors. If we sell out of one, or two, or a few more savoury flavours of ink, we won’t be getting it in until next spring. I still get minor anxiety attacks thinking about last year and our empty shelves…

All that being said, you can always come visit us in store! And with winter coming, I hope you are taking brisk walks and drinking hot chocolate. We’ve got lots of exciting things to come in the next few weeks as we work up to the holiday madness!

Rohrer & Klingner Konigsblau

Rohrer & Klingner inks are some of my favourites. They are not a very flashy ink company, although they are better known for their iron gall inks (Salix & Scabiosa) as well as their super shading Alt Goldgrun.

Konigsblau is one of my favourite blues because it’s a very pleasant royal blue. With so many ultra saturated and unusual inks that pop, it’s sometimes nice to have just a standard, everyday blue ink.

I use it a lot for everyday writing. It has generally very good behaviour on most papers, is easy to clean out, shades quite a bit. That’s not to say a lack of strikes against it suffices to make it a wonderful ink – it’s just a really great overall ink. The best part of this ink is that there is just a touch of sheen to it! It’s sometimes not very noticeable with finer nibs (the writing sample above is a Lamy medium nib), although if you glance at it in the right light, you can see it. In an Ahab flex fountain pen, with much more ink on the page, the sheen is much more prominent.

Sheen is when, after the ink has dried, you can see a bit of reflection or shine that’s usually in a different colour. In the photo below, you can see a hint of purplish red at the tops and edges of the lines, where the ink has pooled.

I always see wonderful pictures people take of sheen in inks, and I was having a hard time with my camera, but I hope you can see what I’m getting at.

Getting some sheen out of your inks depends a great deal on your paper not being very absorbent. If the ink is absorbed into the paper too much, it will look much flatter. This writing sample was done on Life Japanese Stationery Stenographer pad, but other good papers to test for sheen on include Rhodia, Clairefontaine or other Life Japanese Stationery paper.

I do get asked quite a bit which inks have sheen in them, because it’s an unusual feature of fountain pen ink that you just don’t get with gel pens or your average ballpoint.

Rohrer & Klingner Konigsblau Bottled Ink

 

Other inks with sheen include:

Sailor Sky High
Sailor Grenade
Sailor Epinard
Sailor Sei Boku
Private Reserve DC Electric Blue
Private Reserve Naples Blue
Private Reserve Ebony Blue