17 June 2020

Strange Times

The following picture displays two different inks by two different makers—Pilot and Tono & Lims.


Are these two inks so different?

Both inks are remarkably similar in color but their prices are a factor of 2 apart. The Pilot Iroshizuku costs JPY 30/ml (50 ml inkwell) or JPY 47/ml (3-15 ml inkwells), whereas the Tono & Lims costs JPY 60/ml (30 ml inkswell).

Are they so different? Is there any reason for this disparity?


Needless to say, companies have all the right to market whatever the color they consider fit for whatever the price they decide; and that regardless of what the fellow competitors might make. That is certainly not the problem.

The problem, as I see it, it is on the side of the user and how we spend our resources, always limited. Inflation on inks (::1::, ::2::) –some of them redundant-- and on their price (::3::, ::4::) is hardly beneficial to the customer.


Ink and price inflation on one single picture.

The paradox nowadays is that the ferocious competition on the ink market is not translated into a competition on lowering the prices. Much the opposite, actually, as inkwells become smaller and smaller and prices are on the hike.

Strange times.


Ohashido – Sailor Blue

Bruno Taut
Nakano, June 16th, 2020
etiquetas: tinta, Tono & Lims, mercado, Pilot

2 comments:

Nina said...

Thank you for this! FYI: Noodler's has excellent + cheaper versions of many expensive inks: American Aristocracy is a duplicate for Hobble Zoom + various brown Iroshizuku inks; Charles Dickens is similar to de Atramentis's Cement Gray.... and the list goes on.
When you consider Noodler's gives you 90 ml (3 oz) of ink for $12.50 US, it's SO worth checking out their collection first. The labels are worth twice the price - I love reading the creator's thoughts on historical events which he names his inks after and are scrawled on the labels so I end up learning something too. It's really difficult not to be seduced by each "new" color or brand! I say that but recently I've been craving Troublemaker inks...only they're sold out everywhere and the brand has been in the process of making them for eons. If I looked hard, I'm sure I'd find cheaper dupes!

Bruno Taut said...

Noodler's inks might work in the US, but hardly overseas.

Thanks for your comment.

BT

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