I’m happy to see Sailor continuing on with their 50 States Collection which began with Colorado and California. Today I get to show you Sailor New York and Sailor Texas (20mL each, $25 each at Dromgoole’s) which were sent to me for a review. Thank you, Larry!
The first ink is Sailor New York (I’m only going alphabetically – I’m not trying to put New York above Texas!). Included with the ink is a small card explaining a bit why this color was chosen for New York.
“Sailor’s New York Ink was inspired by a famous baseball team that resides here. Can you guess which one?” The answer, of course, is the New York Yankees, who use a dark blue as an official color (HEX COLOR: #002D72). Even the first glimpse of the ink seems like it will be accurate. There’s a nice sheen on the threads of the bottle – not an overpowering sheen, but definitely present.
The color of New York on a Col-o-ring card is a lovely dark blue-black with a touch of a green-black sheen. This blue-black does lean towards the purple side, but not much. The sheen showed up in writing around each letter – not quite a halo, but at the edges of letters (I typically define a halo as an outline around the ink that makes the writing appear to pop out from the page). It is not a permanent ink but it does show water resistance.
The second ink today is Sailor Texas. The included card states “Sailor’s Texas ink was inspired by the state’s history of making leather goods”.
Unfortunately, there is no standard color of leather for me to compare, but the color definitely does fulfill my idea of a leather color! The first look at the ink shows an orangey medium to light brown.
Swatching Sailor Texas showed a darker brown than I had expected and also shows a small amount of a dark brown to black sheen. The shading on this ink is medium and definitely shows up in writing. I even found that a hint of the sheen showed up occasionally.
Texas is close to Aurora Sepia in shading and saturation but Sepia has red undertones where Texas has orange. Franklin Christoph Honeycomb is the closest in tone. Again, the ink is not waterproof, but is very readable after getting wet.
In my opinion, Sailor has once again selected great colors to represent these states with two inks that are very useable, office-safe colors. The price is the biggest downside of these inks. At $25 for 20mL, this puts the 50 States inks at $1.25 per mL, on par with some of Montblanc’s Elixir inks. The true worth in the Sailor States inks is in the link between state, color, and the reason the color was chosen. The purple Colorado was one that I purchased as soon as I could! If there is a state or states that are dear to your heart, the 50 States collection will definitely call to you.
I’m happy Sailor is continuing with this series and I’m looking forward to seeing further releases. Do you have any guesses as to which states will be next? Any requests?
- Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10)
- Ink: Sailor New York and Sailor Texas (20mL, $25 each)
DISCLAIMER: Some items in this review were provided free for the purpose of this review. Except for the Col-o-ring which was provided to me by a wonderful person who pays me to write blogs by keeping me supplied with Col-o-rings. Please see the About page for more details.
This is such a lovely idea. Perusing this blog is making me want to try fountain pens. Maybe a winter activity when we are still challenged by the pandemic and the weather prevents spending time outdoors. But like so many stationary collections, it will require money and storage. What is a basic, easy to use, value driven fountain pen to start with?