My entire FP life I have found myself blindly buying bottles of ink. In a few short months I have accumulated 50+, some colors I have loved and others were just ok. I don’t think there has been a color I have hated with the power of a thousand suns yet, but I’m sure its out there!
I recently posted about wanting to trade ink samples in the Ink Exchange on FB, and found a wonderful person who wanted some of my hard to find inks and they of course had grails I wanted to try. I had total ink envy when I saw her list ^_^. We ended up deciding to trade 14 samples.
Yes that says KingDON Note lol, but I left my labeler at work and I’m thinking she will know what I mean.
I am wondering how other people feel about sample trades. I am kind of wishing it were more of a “thing”. I usually don’t buy samples, but I love trading them. For some reason in my head spending $10-30 on a bottle I may not like is more worth it than trying the color first for $2-5.00 and then buying said bottle if I really like it. Perhaps its the constant urge to have my ink collection grow? Maybe I just like looking at the bottles? I may never know.
In any case its left me with a decent collection to do trades with ^_^.
Here is the tiny army almost ready for its new home!
Do you like samples? Or are you more of an all in lets buy the bottle kind of person?
SquishyInk 
December 29, 2016 at 9:04 pm
I’m definitely a samples person. I don’t have the space or funds for bottles in every color I want to try nor do I want to go through the hassle of trying to sell or trade them if I don’t end up loving the color. I’ve bought some bottles before I had a sample but as a rule I must love the color before I can buy a bottle. I do have a sample problem though… I just counted and I have 70 samples right now, all in various states of inked once, almost gone and haven’t tried yet. I just love all the colors and keep too many pens inked at once… In comparision, I only have 12 bottles of ink. Okay, actually counting those that’s more than I thought I had… Though some are small 30/35 ml ones. And I won one of those (soon to be two of course!), was gifted one and two I bought for my husband… Not to mention I also have a decent amount of cartridges… I think I may have an ink problem…
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December 30, 2016 at 1:16 pm
That is true! The bottles do take up a lot of space. My cabinet is full and my little drawers are getting full lol. I actually have a separate box now for all the inks I haven’t had a chance to open up yet. I’m also wondering if I will ever get to use an entire bottle of ink? Just so many different colors, seems like the levels never go down too far. All of my bottles are at or above 3/4 full lol!
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December 30, 2016 at 10:25 am
I think samples are a great idea for “try before you buy” reasons. I don’t own enough inks (yet) to participate in exchanges but I think that’s an eminently sensible idea.
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December 30, 2016 at 1:17 pm
You only need 1 to participate lol 🖋💕. I like the try before you buy too, but for some reason just love getting bottles. Perhaps my rule should be buy bottle, trade samples lol. Best of both!
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December 30, 2016 at 1:54 pm
The bottles are gorgeous.
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December 30, 2016 at 1:11 pm
I have tried oh-so-many samples, and you can’t talk me into counting them. OK, I’ve counted, but you can’t talk me into saying how many I’ve tried. Then I get bottles… and to justify how many I have, I give away freely to anyone interested. (That’s the general rule, but I won’t give of every grail color to just anyone…) Actually, the pen/ink community it so great, and gives so much without asking in return, that I feel very good every time I share of the excess I have bought, and know that I will go on acquiring. I give the samples I didn’t love to my nephew, who’s a budding artist. And I am thrilled to exchange samples with those who have inks I want to try. After all, not everything is even available to buy in samples! I’ve long said that I wouldn’t have been sucked so deep into this rabbit hole were it not for the equivalent of crack dealers — retailers who entice you with “cheap” samples… as if that didn’t just encourage the love of “all the colors”.
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December 30, 2016 at 1:14 pm
Heh yes down the rabbit hole we go! That is generous! I wish that sample exchange were more of a thing, I’m not sure why there isn’t more trading in the general FP community. I’ve posted about it in a couple of places and haven’t had all that much interest. I’m wondering if it’s the lack of vials? I have usually had better luck trading bottles, which is good but I think not as much fun as getting a bunch of colors and sending a bunch too 😍.
Perhaps it’ll catch on 😀 💚💛💜❤️🦋💓💙
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January 1, 2017 at 6:47 pm
I LOVE samples. Back around the year 2000, when I first got into fountain pens as a total novice, I did not encounter such a wonderful thing as samples. I had to guess what an ink looked like from a bad online picture or a picture in a catalog. I was disappointed as often as I was pleased, perhaps disappointed a few times more. So I did not have too many inks to choose from. I don’t even know if people were selling samples at that time; I suffered from a severe lack of information. I never saw an ink review; never heard of such a thing! Then some of my fountain pens were stolen and I didn’t have the funds to replace them, so I temporarily dropped my hobby before I could seriously get into it.
More recently, just 2-3 years ago, I found myself craving a fountain pen in my hand. I still knew practically nothing about fountain pens, except that I liked writing with some of them. So I got online, and guess what? I discovered ink samples! I was hooked. This was a way to try tons of different ink colors at a very low cost, without getting burned on bottle after bottle. So, I give lots of credit to ink samples for getting me back into fountain pens in a big way. There were now so many beautiful colors to try, I just had to have more pens so I could try them all out! And I think you know the rest of that story….
So, I love ink samples. I love having colors that I might not want to buy a whole bottle of, but enjoy trying them out. Often, I try a color in two or three different pens before I decide I like it. So I like GENEROUS samples. I have discovered that some ink sellers give slightly more generous samples than others and I tend to gravitate toward them for my ink purchases.
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January 7, 2017 at 4:00 am
I’ve bought far too many bottles of ink without trying, that I don’t use. Whoever came up with the idea of ink samples deserves a medal.
I truly love trading inks, it brings me joy like few other things do. At last count I was up to I believe 119 different samples, plus a box of 27 I was given at Scriptus. so many inks to try, so little time.
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January 7, 2017 at 7:51 am
Wow that sounds like quite the collection! I just received a box of around 17 samples that I am dying to try, just haven’t had the time yet 😭. Hoping that the weekend will be a time for many colors 😍💜❤️💙💚🐳
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January 7, 2017 at 7:57 am
I look forward to reading and seeing the results! I need to get on that myself, it’s been months since I posted anything. But you reach a point where the vials are overwhelming and you dont know where to start!
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