I've written before about how much I love Sailor Ink, especially certain of the specialty inks Sailor developed for Japanese Retailer Bung Box. A while back, I purchased as many different samples as I could from Vanness Pens, which as far as I know is the only U.S. retailer to carry the Bung Box ink line. Unfortunately, it's taken me a while to get around to testing out these inks.
The first one I inked up was Dandyism, advertised as a green-black. Some have gone so far as to call this a substitute for Montblanc's legendary Racing Green (now discontinued, as all great Montblanc inks eventually are for inexplicable reasons). I won't belabor this review: Dandyism is a great ink but I'm not sure it's worth the money. It's slightly darker than Sailor Epinard or Sailor Tokiwa-Matsu. Tokiwa Matsu (essentially the current version of Epinard) costs more than $20 less per bottle, which to me is too great of a price difference to justify purchasing the Dandyism at $40 a pop. (Note: these pictures make the color difference look somewhat greater than it is IRL. The Dandyism is captured fairly accurately here, but the Epinard appears lighter in the picture than it does to the naked eye.)
Dandyism (top) vs. Epinard/Tokiwa Matsu (bottom). I know some people are going to say that these are completely different colors, but they're close enough to keep me from paying $40 for a bottle of Bung Box, especially where you could darken up the Epinard with a drop of black ink.
Sailor inks almost always work well on cheap paper and have very little feathering or bleedthrough, even with the wettest fountain pen nib. This one is no exception. The pens used for this review are my Lamy 2000 Stainless Steel (Dandyism) and my Scriptorium Pens Balladeer (Epinard).
Dandyism and Epinard Writing Samples.
DISCLAIMER: This post contains affiliate links, through which I may be compensated a small amount if you purchase something from certain sites linked to in this article. While I'd greatly appreciate it if you use these links to purchase an item you are interested in, you are, of course, under no obligation to do so. Many thanks!