Sailor Fountain Pen, Pigment Bottle Ink, 1.7 fl oz (50 ml), Ultra Black 13-2002-220

I hesitated for quite a while before buying this – debating between this (13-2002-242, Seiboku) and the Souboku ink. While I don’t have the latter now, deciding after reading many reviews and articles, to try Seiboku (this ink) I’m so very glad that I did! I LOVE the color. Often described as a blue-black, it decidedly leans to the blue, with a little green (teal, some say) but it’s just “luxurious!” YMMV, but if you’re debating, maybe seeing if you can find a sample to try it. One of these days I want to try a sample of its cousin Souboku, but I just love this one so much I’m not honestly sure of the need for anything else. My other favorite is Platinum Carbon Black (another pigment ink). I call them “security” inks because the pigments (nano particles) truly binds to the paper so that it’s almost impossible to remove it (search “pigment vs. dye ink”). They are “permanent” without being long-term deleterious to the paper, as iron gall (at least the “old fashioned” iron galls) could be (at least over the decades and honestly no one will be reading anything I wrote decades from now!). And I find that this flows so much more nicely than the iron gall inks (e.g. R&K) that I have – they’re really nice, but aren’t as enduring – I’ve tested them as described below and they are NOT “permanent” in certain solvents as the pigment inks are). If you look up “check washing” you’ll see what I’m talking about. There are articles and videos demonstrating it. I took samples of Carbon Black and Seiboku on standard (nothing fancy at all) writing paper, let them dry a day, and soaked them in: 1. Water, 2. Isopropyl alcohol (91%), 3. hydrogen peroxide, 4. acetone – the apparently “classic” ink washer – nail polish remover and 5. household BLEACH. Let them all sit for 3 days soaking. At the end, Carbon and Seiboku were TOTALLY legible in EVERY ONE of these liquids. Indeed, the bleach actually DESTROYED THE PAPER (it fell apart as I removed it from the container, but the INK REMAINED!). I also tested ballpoint inks, iron gall and dye inks in this experiment, some of them literally disappeared with soaking, but not these two! So anything you want to STAY on paper likely WILL with either of these two (Uni-ball pigment gel ink performed the same in my tests, that’s my daily non-fountain ink). I only use these for writing, not drawing, so can’t comment on that use; some seem to say that water bleeds them, but I can only suspect that it’s if applied immediately after laying down the Seiboku. Once it dries, in my experiment there was no bleeding or ink loss whatsoever (but remember, I allowed the inks to dry for about a day before exposing them to those solvents). Some note that the ink dries and gums up the pen or is hard to clean. I’ve been using mine almost exclusively in Platinum pens (e.g Prefounte, Plasir; what can I say, I’m practical and go for nice, but inexpensive, pens!) and they have a proprietary cap that seals the nib tightly. All I can say is that I’ve had a converter filled for more than 2 months and the ink flows immediately and nicely with those pens/nibs! I haven’t had any issues cleaning. I can’t say the same when I’ve used other of my pens (for example Lamy Safari) – some without the nib seal have required a little work to restart if there’s been a couple days since last use. All in all, one of my favorites! Best wishes!