2017

In the spring of 2017 I discovered White Rabbit Express shipping service.  Now Inks, LE Sailor Pro Gear’s and unique, store- specific washi tapes from Japan that were only previously available at premium cost via eBay, were now available at all times of the day, night and year via this handy service.  This is how I managed to snag a couple of the otherwise rare Jelly Fish series inks from Kingdom Note.  In this case, Chrysaora Helvola, an unusual rich yellow somewhat similar to Kobe’s Taisanji temple yellow, and Thysanostoma Thysanura a bright Rhodedendoran purple.  Here they are…

IMG_0057.jpg

2015

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.

Dorcus Hopei Binoduosus is a very well behaved inks in the black- grey spectrum.  It’s perfectly fine if a little dull.

Docus Hopei Binoduosus

IMG_1570

Nippon Nipponia

Nippon Nipponia is a very bright orange/ red colour similar in shade to Kingdom Note’s Ammanita Muscaria from the Mushroom series, as well as BunguBox’s Sakura Saku.  Of the three I like BunguBox’s Sakura Saku the best.  However, all three inks suffer from dryness.  I now only use Sakura Saku in my Jinhao X250 as it is such a wet writer that the dryness is not noticeable, particularly on Hobonichi TR paper, which is what I use almost exclusively nowadays.

IMG_1564