Ink Review #100

*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.

Overview

The color/properties:

Sailor USA Maryland is a rich and rustic golden-yellow that shades with a soft gradient between light and dark tones in areas where the ink pools. You may see some harder, darker edges, but in general, the transition is soft. In writing, the ink also has a pleasant velvety look to it, especially with larger nibs.

Being a Sailor ink, Maryland also has the Sailor smell, and unfortunately, you’ll either love it or hate it, but it’s noticeable while writing.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

Sailor Maryland was gentle throughout my tests; outside of the usual bleeding on Kokuyo (which was very little), there wasn’t any bleed-through or feathering on the other papers. It should be fine on most fountain pen-friendly papers, and at least in my experience (and with a lot of use), it’s never been problematic. The dry times are mostly average, but longer than I would expect from a drier ink. The ink mostly dried within 15 seconds with the larger nib sizes, but on Tomoe River especially, they went into 20-25, seconds, which is still serviceable, but surprising nonetheless.

I wasn’t expecting a lot in the way of water resistance with this ink, but surprisingly there was at least some. The color washes away quickly after water exposure, but there are still dark grey/brown shadows left behind that are easily readable.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

Sailor Maryland has a dry flow, but regardless, it didn’t have any issues performing in any of the test nibs. I didn’t have any hard starts or skips, however, the writing experience feels strange to me. The flow is dry, and yet it feels lubricated. This creates a strange sensation when writing that I can only describe as that feeling you get writing on paper that’s been impacted by hand oils. I didn’t necessarily mind it, but I can see this being a huge deal-breaker for a lot of people. I was worried that there might be some chance for nib creep with this ink, but thankfully I’ve never experienced it (although I have noticed some brown fogginess around the base of the nib occasionally when using it).

Cleaning the ink out was easy and only required the standard soak and flush to clear it from the nibs and test pen.

• Performance in a pen: 8/10

• Performance on paper: 8/10

• Color saturation: 6/10

• Sheening: 0/10

• Shading: 5/10

• Dry time: 7/10

• Water resistance: 3/10

• Ease of cleaning: 9/10

• Shimmer: None

My personal thoughts...

Goodness, 100 reviews in! For the longest time, I wasn’t sure what I would do for this milestone, if anything special at all, but coming up on it, why not just do something more personal? So here we are: Sailor USA Maryland. I can’t think of a better occasion, and it’s an ink that I’ve had for some time now and had a lot of enjoyment with, so I’m happy to finally talk about it.

When I first heard about the Sailor USA 50 State inks, my first thought was “Oh no, I bet Maryland is going to be Blue Crab,” and I couldn’t be happier that I was wrong, because for one, I hate seafood. And two, it’s just so pedestrian — not everything has to be Blue Crab themed. Instead, we got what was inspired by our Maryland state flower: the Black-Eyed Susan. As Sailor states on the little insert for the ink, “The shading properties of this ink showcase both the brown center and yellow petals of the beautiful plant.” Straight away, does it look like a Black-Eyed Susan? Not really — It’s not the kind of searing bright yellow that you would expect when imagining the flower, but I see what they were going for, and I don’t necessarily think they got it wrong. Inspirations aside, the color still feels unquestionably Maryland, and it reminds me about a lot of the things I personally love about my state: the rich history; the ridiculous but totally S-tier state flag; Old Bay fries; our beautiful autumn season (and the season I prefer this ink in); delicious mead (among many local varieties) during our accompanying renaissance faire in the fall; a weekend in downtown Annapolis. Did I mention that our official state sport is freaking jousting? Yeah, this place is alright.

More images/info:

Tools and materials used in the writing samples:

• A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.

• A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad

• A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook

• A Midori MD A5 Notebook

• A 52gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook

• A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook

• A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook