Ink 100: Part 4 Hitting My Goal

This is Part 4 of my Ink 100 series. If this is the first time you’ve seen these posts, check out Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3 first to catch up on my inky adventure. Now onwards…!

The Ink 100 project is reaching its conclusion (thank the ink gods… it feel like this went on forever!). While I had some large collections from specific brands left, some of the inks left were onsie-twosies and other oddball inks.

Some ink bottles only had a dribble of ink left and those were culled immediately. That eliminated six bottles. I also had some inks decanted into nagelene bottles from an ink purchase Jesi and I did a few years ago. Sadly, any inks that were decanted into the nagelene bottles developed cracks in the caps and the inks have started to evaporate changing the consistency and fluidity. Those all got chucked too. Sad but they were no longer functional. I also had a bottle of older Birmingham ink that changed color DRAMATICALLY. Originally, Canterbury Raisin was a beautiful shading lavender purple but for some unknown reason, the ink is now 100% pale turquoise. Weird, right? Also, garbage now.

This leads me to some of the true lessons of this Ink 100 project. Owning more ink than I could possibly use in several lifetimes can result in inks that shift in color, evaporate or suffer from other ink-tastrophes. I need to keep the inks I love and use the inks I own.

I need to keep the inks I love and use the inks I own.

As I worked my way through all six drawers in my Ikea Alex unit, I was able to start getting more ruthless as I reviewed colors across brands that fill a similar space in my collection. I don’t use certain color categories a lot — like golden yellows — so I only need one option in this color range.

In other cases, I had several options that were quite close in color so I needed to decide which one would be better for me. For example, the lovely Bungubox Kaoru and Vinta Karnival 1908 are quite similar in hue. As much as I love the tiny little  shoe bottle that the Bungubox uses, the Vinta Karnival is just a bit darker and will be better for me in the long run.

Many of the light, multi-chrome inks are not used frequently (see previous comments about FINE nib pen preferences) but they are so pretty its hard to let them go. I have a couple stub nibs I use so I will keep a few of these colors but I did make some cuts if the colors were close.  And shimmer inks? I slashed 90% of the shimmer inks I own. I just don’t use them no matter how much I find them pretty. I only kept seven shimmer inks.

Colorverse Culling:

Just when I thought I was done, I realized that I forgot about the Colorverse inks that I had on a bookshelf. Sigh… more culling!

Since these Colorverse inks were still in their boxes, I laid all the swatches out on the boxes in their sets. Since I’d gone through the other ridiculous volume of inks, and despite my sentimentality about many of these Colorverse inks I was ready to hit my goal, feed my cats and be done with this part of my project.

Hitting my goal:

After culling the Colorverse inks, I did a count and my total counts was… drum roll, please… 94 bottles of ink! Woot!

Rule breaking:

So, there was a bit of breaking my own rules so I will ‘fess up to those now.

In the end, I didn’t count my special, limited edition ink sets. I think of them more as collectibles than daily use inks. I have three sets from Colorverse, all space themed, a couple sets from Vinta and then two very rare, unique box set ink collections. I may change my mind on some of these sets in the next few months but for right now, they are bookshelf sets so they are not clogging up my ink drawers and therefore do not count in the final tally.

I also did not include any samples or the minis included in the Diamine Inkvent sets. Again… sets, right? I would like to verify that I’ve swatched all the Inkvent colors before I let those go or maybe, purchase full bottles of favorites (I have 6 slots open before I have to start doing the “one in, one out” game).

The Final Selections:

Would it be fair not to give the final list and not show EVERY SINGLE COLOR? Of course not, so stay tuned. The final Ink 100 selections will have a whole post dedicated to my selections. Stay tuned, that post will go up next week. I might even trim a few more colors before then…