I fell in love with Sailor Studio 273 as soon as I saw a photo of the ink on two different types of paper – the ink looked like an entirely different color when only the paper was changed. 
This is another ink that I have placed in my “Inks that have really weird properties” category; a category that houses other inks I find unusual or amazing. Other inks include Robert Oster Avocado, Sailor 123, and Montblanc Swan Illusion as well.
The Sailor Studio inks use a numbering system to differentiate the inks – a numbering system that also gives clues to the color of the ink. The first number (here, 2) is used to indicate the shade of the ink, although saturation is indicated to some extent as well. 1 is the lightest and 0 the darkest.
The last two numbers (here 7 and 3) can be used to find the family of the ink – inks that have nearly the same color mixtures. Ink 373 looks like it may be close to Montblanc Swan Illusion which made me even more excited to try 273 – hopefully, I could find another ink that was slightly different than Swan but also contained the same haunting color mixture.
I wasn’t disappointed. Sailor Studio 273 is a strange mixture of brown, dusky pink and what looks like an orangish yellow.
I have tried to show inks that look similar here, but as you can see, nothing is quite there. I didn’t include Swan Illusion since it contains more red undertones. 
The photo above shows 273 on Tomoe cream paper. With the top swab of ink, I smeared it while it was still wet to show how the ink layers upon itself.
One note – there is no sparkle in this ink. There was a tiny bit of sparkle left in the nib of this pen from a previous fill.
As for other qualities in the ink, it is absolutely not water resistant and the flow is medium. The price is high, however, coming in at $21.49 for only 20mL from this eBay seller. So far, no one in the US has started to carry this ink, but I’m hoping someone will!
Disclaimer: All items in this review were purchased by me. For more information, visit our About page.
Dear Jessica, indeed this ink is pretty amazing ! Quite some people in Europe read also your posts. Perhaps it is nice for them to know Sakura Fountain Pen Gallery in Belgium is carring the full Sailor Ink Studio range.
These numbered inks from Sailor are proving to be so interesting. What at first glance seemed to be such unassuming colors are proving to provide astounding displays. I always hope for inks that have wonderful shading properties or will show us more than one color. It’s not very often, though, that an ink truly shows us different colors. I really love those that can pull the rabbit out of the hat for that trick. You’ve found one that did it.
Hi there. Thank you very much for this post. Have you tried comparing the 273 and 373 inks? How different or similar are they in actual use? I’m asking this question primarily because I’m looking for a good replacement or alternative to the Montblanc Swan Illusion Plume, given that it’s a limited edition ink. I hope you can shed some light on this matter. Thank you very much.
Paul