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17 August 2018

Signs of Change? (Ink Market)

On July 25th I wrote about a new line of inks by Sailor commissioned by Nakabayashi, a stationery company. As is often the case with Chronicles on new inks, I expected a big impact resulting in an increase in visits and a number of links point out at these pages.

But that was not the case at all. In fact, the news on these new inks on English-speaking fora barely raised any brow. This is a sharp contrast with the passionate reactions new inks, particularly by Sailor provoked not so long ago.


The "Blue Revolution" did not mobilize the masses.

Are ink aficionados saturated with all these new colors? Or is the market saturated of inks? The ironic detail is that at JPY 54/ml, these Sailor-Nakabayashi inks were not the most expensive Sailor inks in the market…

Maybe the reasons are completely different. Maybe the colors of the “Blue Revolution” were not attractive. Maybe 50 ml inkwells were too big… All this is, so far, mere speculation, but I also think that the ink market has grown into a bubble of colors and prices.

And we might be seeing some signs of change.


Pelikan M800 "kodaishu" by Iwase – Sailor Red Brown

Bruno Taut
Nakano, August 17th 2018
etiquetas: Sailor, tinta, mercado, Nakabayashi

6 comments:

pharaonis said...

Bruno, thanks as always for sharing information on new inks coming out of Japan. I imagine most people don't mind the size of the ink bottle as long as it makes sense for the price. Truly, I think the Nakabayashi inks just aren't very interesting—blue inks that look slightly different depending on the size of the nib are already readily available from more accessible retailers. The packaging is beautiful, but I don't think that's reason enough for most people.

18/8/18 06:05
Bruno Taut said...

Thanks, Pharaonis, for your comment.

You make an interesting point --those blue inks might not be that revolutionary--, but in the past any new ink release made waves in the community. Furthermore, I do not hear much noise about the 100 new colors of Sailor's Ink Studio line...

Well, only time will tell...

Thanks for passing by and commenting.

BTW, is your blog "Winter Sharks" active?

BT

18/8/18 08:17
Saltire Turquoise said...

And now Lamy has joined in with ten new shades. Not sure about the bottle though, doesn't look as useful as the normal 30ml Lamy bottle.

21/8/18 01:30
Bruno Taut said...

Thanks, Saltire, for the information.

The ink market is very profitable and it is only logical that more companies wanted to cash their well known and well used knowledge. But is the market willing to take that much offer of new inks and colors?

Lamy did not seem that active in the ink market. The exception was the yearly color associated to the yearly edition of a Safari and of an AL star pens.

BT

21/8/18 10:22
Dezorz said...

There is some noise on Instagram about 109 ink studio inks. The most strange of them, 123, 162 are highly regarded. On the ither hand, anywhere else, no reviews, no ink swabs...

23/8/18 06:48
Bruno Taut said...

Thanks, Dezorz, for your comment. Now, I do not know if this new apathy in the ink market is a good thing... Is this the invisible hand of Capitalism?

Thanks again.

BT

23/8/18 17:20

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