writing with my fountain pens again is super good but i get a little sad every time i take a refill from one of my sailor inks. when i bought them they were quite affordable and came in 50mL bottles, but nowadays they are PROHIBITIVELY expensive and my colours of choice are mostly only available in stupid little 20mL bottles now. i will miss you forever, sailor sky high, yama-dori and epinard... at least pilot iroshizuku inks are somewhat more affordable these days after years of being wallet busters, and have pretty decent analogues available for 2/3 of my fav sailor inks
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in reply to @drakonis's post:
when I bought my sailor inks they were 18 dollars Canadian for 50mls. 50mls lasts a really long time (years, for me, who uses several colours interchangeably), but sailor inks are at least double that price now. when these run out I'm not replacing them. hell, I can't since some of them have been discontinued entirely!
prices for fountain pen inks are wacky, especially Japanese inks (which are my favourites, unfortunately, as importing puts a premium on them) and vary a lot depending on where you live but here in Canada uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm not paying that for sailor lol. pilot is still pretty expensive but their price has come down enough where I'm like. yeah ok one bottle of nice teal ink that will last me ages, in a nice functional bottle? that's fine, whatever lol
twenty dollars for 20mL? for an ink I originally got 50mL for about that price? what the hell man https://wonderpens.ca/products/center-sailor-shikiori-fountain-pen-ink-20ml-yamadori-center
God, fuck that. I was curious about what exactly goes into these inks that would warrant such a cost, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that these brands keep their ingredients tightly under wraps.
fountain pen stuff is primarily niche hobbyist shit (like lets be real most normal people would just get a pack of half decent rollerballs or maybe some fineliners and call it good re: handwritten material) so prices tend to get inflated for no good reason but some inks are WAY more cost effective than others.
buyer beware as always though, because I've had some cheaper brands gunk up my pens or bleed thru nice notebooks like its tissue paper. probably the most cost effective brand out there sells bottles at 14$ american for 90mL and while they are wildly popular i don't care for any i've tried and they aren't easy to find locally these days LOL. you can definitely get stuff that isn't stupid expensive though i'm just picky/a snob