Oh Visionnaire! Mais non!
That is what I wrote in our show notes for this weeks episode. Interesting info keeps appearing about the already quetionable Visionnaire Kickstarter project, and few answers are to be had. Myke and I dissect that, plus have a discussion around brick and mortar pen shops and two excellent charity drives.
There is no such thing as the perfect blue ink. Some blue inks come pretty close to perfection, but you'll have a need or a desire to try others. It comes with the territory.
I was recently on a crusade to find a favorite blue ink for my fountain pens. I was naive enough to believe that I could settle on just one ink. Now I know better. I ordered many samples from Goulet Pens and had an absolute blast trying them all out. It didn't take long before I realized that I wouldn't be able to settle, and I might be better off just owning all of them. That makes sense, right?
It was through this blue ink voyage that I realized I had never even tried a particular blue ink of which I had several cartridges lying around. Lamy fountain pens generally come with a blue cartridge, but I had never once tried one. I guess I thought it was a "freebie" and it wouldn't be worth trying. When I got around to trying it, I was very pleased to be so wrong.
There's nothing particularly special about this blue, but it's a very steadfast and dependable ink. It won't turn heads and garner complements. It's well-behaved and predictable. In my mind, I think of it as my default, professional blue. And while that might sound boring, it's also a very high complement. Each ink has a purpose, and this one fills a very specific need.
I bought a bottle of Lamy Blue from JetPens on a whim. I was intrigued by the bottle and the tape attached to the bottom, and I knew I didn't want another bottle of black ink, so blue it was!
The bottle is larger than I expected. 50 ml is the same size as my Iroshizuku ink, but the Lamy bottle is larger in order to accommodate the roll of tape on the base. As you'd expect, the bottle works great for filling pens. What more can I say? What I find interesting is the blotter tape. This is extremely handy for cleaning up a pen after filling it. The tape has two sides: an absorbent side and a water-proof side. The absorbent side does an excellent job of soaking up any ink droplets on the pen, while the water-proof side prevents the ink from soaking through to your fingers. You can clean up the pen without staining your fingers!
I've found myself reaching for this tape when I fill pens with other inks, just because it makes the clean-up so much easier than using a tissue or paper towel. I can never manage to fill a pen without getting some ink on my fingers, but maybe I'm just clumsy.
Overall, this is a great everyday ink and the blotter tape is a very useful bonus.
A little over a week has passed and still no word from our original winner. You snooze, you lose! Hopefully this bag won't go unclaimed a second time - it is far too awesome for that!
Congratulations Walt White! What exactly do you plan on carrying in this bag Walt White? No matter, it is all yours if you CONTACT ME within the next week. Please.
