exPENsivePhotography

Kingdom note (KN) is a very cool stationary shop based in Shinjuku, Tokyo.  I believe it is in the same building as Map Camera, another very cool store, (Leica retailer) that I have heard good things about.  KN sell a range of fountain pens, and also release a number of store exclusive fountain pens with quirky themes.  Their collaborations with Sailor are particularly sought after and rare.  Kingdom Note line of ink was retailing for a long time on ebay for around $50 or less with free shipping.  Now they are going for even crazier prices.  I have seen them in the $100’s On eBay.  I purchased these 2016/17 Jellyfish and Crustacean directly from Kingdom Note, but via shipping service White Rabbit Express.  With the latter your paying around $15/bottle, plus a small cut for WRE plus shipping.

Autumn 2017

Marocheira Kaempferi

Marocheira Kaempferi, Spider Crab in English, is named after the Japanese long-legged, sea dwelling creature that can be found all around the waters of Japan.  The ink itself is part of the crustacean series of inks released by Kingdom Note in 2016.  The colour is a very saturated brick red, similar to the crab itself- see here…

Here is a picture of the bottle and box…

A sample on Original Crown Mill laid cardstock…

And a Col-O-Ring card…

Some comparisons…

Chromatography reveals pinks, brown, black, yellow…I’m new to chromatography, I shall try and use a larger coffee filter next time- I am using cut up Aeropress filters.

You can see a nice sheening green outline on the thick laid paper/cardstock…

Verdict:  A nice saturated brick red with some nice sheen- I didn’t notice much shading, but that could have been the pen I was using.  I don’t have any other brick reds, but from what I’ve seen on-line, Kobe brick red would be a close approximation.

Birgus Lastro

Birgus Lastro, or Coconut Crab, is another KN ink in the Crustaean series.  The creature itself is a rather curious fellow.  The largest land-living Anthropod in the world, according to the internet.  It is also commonly known as “robber-crab” or “palm-thief”.  You can see why from this picture below.  Stolen from Google again I’m afraid…

Here is the ink bottle and box…

Here is a writing sample on Rhodia.  It was a very cloudy day when I took this…

It reminds a bit of Sailor 4 Seasons Doyou as you can see from this sample here, but I think Doyou has more of an underlying reddish hue…

Chromatography reveals black and yellow…

Water-prooofness? Hard to tell- I left this to dry for 1 hour before doing the water test, so maybe doesn’t tell much…. I think it may be a bit waterproof.

Sheen?  Can detect some sheen to copper/ silver on Original Crown Mill laid paper… 

Verdict:  Birgus Latro, I realised I wrote it as “Birgus Lastro”, is a nice saturated, reliable dark brown/black/grey ink, in the same vein as Sailor Four Seasons Do-You.  It also behaves the same way and has a similar feel to it.  Has a bit of sheen but only on certain card stock.  I haven’t used it that much, but I doubt you’ll get wicked sheen with all the letters as you would with say Hakodate Twilight, or even Syo-Ro.  You can’t see shading with the juicy stub I was using for the sample, but it does have some.  The ink, whilst being quite wet, dries in a reasonable amount of time.  A decent ink all round, but nothing terribly special.

Marsupenaeu Japonicus

Marsupenaeu Japnicus, also known as Japanese Tiger Prawn, Karuma Shrimp or Karuma Prawn, is a species of prawn that resides in the bays and seas of the Indo-West Pacific.  According to Wikipedia, it is ‘one of the largest species of prawns, and is accordingly one of the most economically important species in the family’.  I always like to credit my sources : )

It very much resembles a cross between a Tiger and Prawn- maybe a Wozzle prawn?  Anyone remember Wozzels?

Here is the prawn…

Just for memory’s sake here are the Wozzels…

…to be fair it kinda looks like the one in the middle…

Marsupenaeu Japnicus is another brown ink in the Kingdom Note Crustacean series.  Here it is pictured below bottle with box…

Here is a writing sample on Rhodia notepad.  I really picked the wrong day to do these ink reviews- so dark…

It seems to have some waterproof properties to it which is nice.  Not something I’m not that mindful of when selecting an ink, but reassuring nonetheless…

Chromatography reveals…

*insert chroma pic

Verdict:  A decent enough brown ink.  It reminds me a bit of Pilot Iroshizuku’s Tsukushi.  It has a good amount of redness in it.  Maruzen Athena Sepia is still my No. 1 brown ink, and out of the KN crustacean series, I prefer the darker, less red and more saturated Coconut Crab, but there is nothing wrong with this brown at all.  It has a nice texture to it and I feel it would be same in my more expensive pens.

Summer 2017

Mastigas Papua

Mastigas Papua, or “spotted-jelly”, is a jellyfish that resides in the Indo Pacific Ocean between Japan and Australia.  Here it is upside-down in action…

Here is the Kingdom Note tribute…

Here is my tribute the spotted-jelly with my Tenku-Souzu Sailor Profit Realo filled with the ink of the same name…

Looks quite similar doesn’t it?

Here is a writing sample on Rhodia…

Waterproof?  Not this jellyfish…you can’t so much from below pic, but the letters were completely wiped out.  This is a VERY watery ink.

Aeropress filter chromatography reveals pink and yellow…

A quick swatch comparison on Original Crown Mill laid paper.  Some similar pinks here with Nagasawa ooji cherry and Bungubox Sakura Saku…

Close up comparison Ooji cherry and Mastigas Papua on Hobonichi TR paper.  As you can see the ink is very unsaturated…

Verdict:  A very unsaturated ink that I found to be quite dry despite trying it out in a number of Sailor pens of different wetness.  I love the look of the bottle, the labels and concept, but in my humble opinion, there are greater Kingdom Note jellyfish inks out there than Mastigas Papua.

Conculsion:  Do not buy inks for the labels in future.  Will probably keep it though.  for the labels.

Aequorea Coerulescens

Aequorea Coerulescens, is a colourless green fluorescent jellyfish that I couldn’t find much information on on the internet, but it may look like this…

Here is a quick pic of bottle and box.  I purchased this ink together with Mastigas Papua purely on a whim.  I normally do quite a lot of reading through reviews on the internet before pulling the trigger on an ink purchase as my collection has gotten a bot out of hand.  However, I just couldn’t resist this pastel colours.  As we shall see, maybe I should have…

Aequorea Coerulescens, an ink as elusive as the Jellyfish it takes its name from.  An  ink is so light it almost doesn’t exist.  Here is a writing sample on Rhodia paper using a juicy steel stub nib…

You can see how watery it is- the numbers completely vanished during the dry time test.  Waterproof?  Nope… *Incidentally I used the wand function on iPhoto to see if it brought anything out in the ink.  I wish it more closely resembled this more luminous version in person…

Without expecting much I tried it on Original Crown Mill thick card.  That usually makes even a bad ink look classy.  Not so… if anything it looks even worse : (

This ink is a very flat, non-shading, non-shading and completely unsaturated version of mint.  In terms of its performance, or ‘qualities’, it reminds me a lot of Montblanc’s Jazz Blue, which was anything but jazzy.

It does fair slightly better on Hobonichi TR paper…

And coffee filter test reveals Ama-iro blue and yellow…

Oh yes, there is another ink it reminds me of, the similarly wishy washy BunguBox Fujiyama Blue.  Here is the chromatography of both inks…

Verdict:  So what do I think of Aequorea Coerulescens?  I think it has a very fancy name for a quite unimpressive ink.  Did I buy this for the bottle and labels?  Yes.  Is it usable?  Not for me.  In addition to its washed out ‘qualities’ and lack of any discernible sheen or shading, like Mastigas Papua above, I found it dry despite trying it out in a range of different Sailor pens.  It is a shame as I do like minty colours.  I wish they could have stolen the recipie for Diamine’s Soft Mint instead.  That is a much wetter, much more saturated ink, and with lovely pronounced shading too.

Conculsion:  Do not buy inks for the labels in future.  Will probably keep it though.  For the labels.

Spring 2017

Chrysaora Helvola

The name Chrysaora Helvola itself derives from Greek Mythology.  Chrysaor was the brother of Pegasus and son of Poseidon and Medusa.  Translated, Chrysaor means “he who has a golden armament” (source Wikipedia).  It is also sometimes referred to as “Sea Nettle”.  Here is a picture of the jellyfish itself swimming fiercely through the ocean…

Here is a picture of Kingdom Note’s ink of the same name.  Their illustration on the label is quite a likeness…

Here is a writing sample on Rhodia…

Waterproof?  Nope…

This ink has a lovely silvery sheen to it that difficult to capture in photographs…

You can see how saturated it is from this sample on Original Crown Mill card stock…

Verdict:  Really like this ink.  Has a nice consistency to it, is very legible for a yellow ink, and most importantly has both decent shading and sheen.  A new favourite.  It has some similarities to KWZI Honey, which people rave about, but I think I prefer this.  The only other two yellows I have in my collection are sunshine yellows- BunguBox Sweet Potato Yellow (another favourite) and Montblanc Golden Yellow.  I particularly like to use Chrysaora Helvola paired with my Omas Extra Lucens (which I used for writing sample above).  The gold & black super luxe look of the Omas looks great with this liquid gold ink swilling around its celluloid barrel.  On another note, I’m glad Kingdom Note picked a yellow ink for its Jellyfish series.  Yellow is quite a rare hue more generally, and I haven’t seen any yellow in  Kingdom Note’s Mushroom, Bird, Insect or Crustacean series inks previously.  In my opinion an all round winner.

I love this ink- here’s a bonus pic…

 

Thysanostoma Thysanura

Thysanostoma Thysanura, us a Jellyfish commonly found in the West Pacific waters of Japan, Australia, Indonesia.  Here it is swimming at full speed…

Here is ink bottle and box…

A writing sample on Rhodia notepad.  It is a nice wet ink with good saturation and decent drying time.

Here is close to a full page of writing on TR Paper….

Waterproof?  Not really…

Here is the chromatography.  Looks pretty straightforward…

It has a nice green sheeny-ness around the edges…

Here is swatch and writing sample on Crown Mill laid paper cardstock.

Here is a comparison with some not very similar purples…

Verdict:  Despite not having too much in the way of sheen, except a bit of shiny green outline, Thysanostoma Thysanura is a very nice ink indeed.  It is a deep, saturated pink-purple Rhodedendron colour, with decent shading.  Like Chrysaora Helvola it has a nice velvety texture to it.  I don’t normally go in for purple inks, but this and Pen & Message Sanyasou have nevertheless risen to near the top of my “favourite inks” list.

2016

Insect series

Kingdom Note

Kingdom note is a stationary shop based in Tokyo, Japan.  Like Bung Box they have become extremely popular in recent years, in large part due to the famous vase- shaped bottles they used.  I believe there a couple of other Japanese stores using these bottles, but they are all now migrating to the standard Sailor ones.  Kingdom Note line of ink was retailing for a long time on ebay for around $50 or less with free shipping.  Now they are going for crazy prices.

I used to have the Mushroom line of inks but found the colours were very unsaturated and quite dry as well, which I didn’t really like.  I ended up selling all four of them.  I regret it slightly now, but at the end of the day I wan’t to be able to use the ink, not look at the bottle!

I held on to two of the Kingdom Note inks- the Stag Beetle Grey below which is nice and saturated and isn’t dry at all, as well as the bright orange/ red Nippon Nipponia, which is actually quite similar to the Mushroom series’ Ammanita Muscaria.

Docus Hopei Binoduosus

I purchased this bottle of Dorcus Hopei in January 2015 via non other than eBay.  I paid $40 for this ink.  Too much?  Price is a very subjective thing…yes I think probably too much… Here it is…

This Rhinocerous Beetle ink from Kingdom Note is a very very dark grey, which looks black most of the time.  Maybe even a saturated black.  It has a very good wet consistency and I would consider it a “safe” ink, in the same vein as Sailor’s Do-you.  It also has a magic trick up its sleeve…an awesome green sheen.  Here is the sheeny-ness in action on Original Crown Mill laid paper…

Pretty awesome, eh?  You can even see the sheen outlining each letter…

Check out sheen here on Hobonichi…

Magic ink for sure.  If your ever in Tokyo and happen to walking past the store in Shinjuku, you might want to pick up a bottle….though sadly it is no longer offered in the case bottle.

Nippon Nipponia

Nippon Nipponia is from the Bird series of inks from the KN line that was released in 2014 I believe.  I honestly can not for the life of me remember how I purchased it.  I’m guessing ebay.  I have no idea how much I paid for it either.  Here is the bottle with writing sample on Rhodia paper…

I did not like this ink very much at all.  I found it to be on the dry side.  Although the ink sitting in the cap looks very vibrant, in person the colour seemed a bit subdued.  It really wasn’t  doing anything for me.  I ended up selling the ink.  With hindsight I should have got the Peregrine teal one instead, but I have so many teals in my ink stash, I think I can live without it.