Autumn 2016

Sweet Potato Yellow

Sweet Potato Purple

Here is full page swatch on my A6 Hobonichi Techo…check out that sheeeeen!

Melancholic Grey

Here is a comparison with some other moody greys…

Fresh Oranges of Lake Hamana

Green Tea 88

Piano Mahogany

Spring 2016

I will be adding some extremely brief and unscientific reviews of the incredibly popular and sought after Sailor Bung Box line of inks.  I only have a few so far but no doubt I’ll manage to accumulate more in the future…

Bung Box have recently (*as of 2016) moved from the highly ergonomic diamond shape Sailor bottles, which make for incredibly easy filling, to the squat Sailor Four- Seasons line style bottles.  Here is the new bespoke Bungubox box.  Previously, they used the Sailor outer boxes, with their label slapped on the front.  I think these new boxes look rather smart…

Fujiyama Blue

Fujiyama Blue in the new squat bottles.

Writing sample Fujiyama Blue.  Purchased 2016.

…unfortunately when I took the bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo and back I managed to miss Mt Fuji both times : /

This is a rich and unusual aqua colour.  It isn’t dry at all and flows well.   I would have thought it would be easy to clean out too, so perhaps a good option for your executive level pens…

I like this colour a lot.  It is definitely a Japanese turquise/ aqua.  It is both cheerful and restful, and makes you think of distant lands….

Thumbs up: 4 Stars

4B

There is some residual shimmer from the Diamine Shimmertastic ‘Shimmering Seas’ I had in my TWSBI Mini earlier…note the sheen from blue to red.  I have tried it on Tomoe River paper and the sheen looks much smoother there.  This ink is almost exactly the same as P.W Akkerman’s ‘Shocking Blue’, except, as with all the Bung Box inks I have tried, this is much more free flowing and “better behaved”.  A writing sample below…

Sweet Pink

Pink isn’t really my colour but I recently bought Montblanc’s Limited Edition ‘Pink Ink’ and really liked it.  This Sweet Pink is in a similar vein to that, but brighter.  I also like the Pilot Iroshizuku lines Yama Budo (Crimson Glory Vine) and Kosumosu (Cherry Blossom).  This Sweet Pink is much less subtle than either of those, a much more teeth decaying candy floss illuminous pink.  However it has a good flow and doesn’t seem to be doing any damage to the Pilot Custom 823 with Spencerian nib I am currently using it in.

Worth mentioning, I was nervous trying the fill such a delicate and large nib in this squat sailor bottle.  The vacuum filling- mechanism also added to the sense of jeopardy as it takes some force to close the end cap and I thought I would end up blunting the nib.  Theses new Sailor bottles really are a curious design…

Here is the writing sample on Tomoe River paper.  There is some shading visible but I think that is more to do with the flexiness of the nib than the ink, but I could be wrong.  I will try it in a firmer nib and report on the results…

Ink of Witch

Bung Box’s ‘Ink of Witch’ is one of the most popular inks in the range.  It is a very dark black/ purple which is very saturated.  It has good flow and isn’t thick and claggy, but it does tend to hang around a bit when rinsing it out of your pens.  I would say it is reasonably well behaved.  I like using it in my firm fine nibs.

Ieyesu

Ieyasu “Successful Career” Armor Black is a basic black ink without any sheen or special properties.  I haven’t used it much, much it is a perfectly usable black ink.  I just really loved the quirky bottle so had to buy it…also, it denotes to “successful career”.

I much prefer these old bottles, as much for the bespoke top label on the cap, as much as the vase- shaped bottles.  I noticed that the Kingdom Note bottles all have the same general label on top.  I have seen pictures on- line of the Japanese pen shop Maruzen’s vase bottles, who also all have the same general label on top.  Part of the quirkiness of Bung Box, or is it Bungubox?

I bought these inks on the Amazon US site.  I could have got Hamananko Eeel, L’amant purple, Espresso Brown and Dandyism in these vase bottles as well but the colours just didn’t jump out at me at the time.  Of course now I wish I did…