The Desk is getting a little cluttered, and what better way to remedy that than to do a giveaway to all you readers! I have a few bottles of ink that I am not really using and a TON of ink samples in various volumes that I've reviewed and now do not need. To put the icing on the cake, I've thrown in some Nock Co. notebooks - a 3 pack of the yellow, and a single book of the new super fountain pen friendly black.

Bottled Inks:
Diamine Grey
Noodler's Antietam
Noodler's Gruene Cactus

Ink Samples:
De Atramentis Charles Dickens
Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun - you'll probably get 1-2 converter fills with this one
Caran d'Ache Magnetic Blue
Diamine Twilight
J. Herbin Gris Nuage
Sheaffer Blue-Black
Waterman Intense Black
Diamine Safari
Noodler's Bad Green Gator
Noodler's Army Green
De Atramentis Mahatma Gandhi
Rohrer & Klingner Lepziger Schwarz
Noodler's Socrates
Noodler's Bad Belted Kingfisher
Diamine Registrar's Blue-Black

So what do you have to do? Enter using the Rafflecopter widget above - the only requirement is that you answer the question "What is your favorite fountain pen?" If you would like an additional 2 entries, follow @thedeskoflori on Twitter, and for an additional 2 entries per day, tweet about the contest.

Fine Print: Contest will end May 11 at 12:00AM EST. Open to US Residents only - unfortunately shipping ink bottles outside the US is insanely expensive, and since this is out of my own pocket, it's not practical for me to ship overseas. My sincerest apologies for this - I do plan on doing a giveaway in the future for smaller items that will be more practical for overseas shipping, so stay tuned! This giveaway covers USPS Flat-Rate shipping, so if you require additional shipping options or insurance, those will be covered by you, the winner. Please provide a valid email address for your entry so that I may contact you if you win - I assure you that your email address will not be sold, traded, given away or used in any way other than to notify you that you've won. If I do not receive a response in 1 week, I will draw a new winner. Thanks for entering!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sheaffer Blue-Black (Ink Drop - April 2015)
Pen: Lamy Safari EF
Paper: Rhodia Dotpad 80gsm
Shading: low to moderate
Saturation: low to medium
Flow: medium wet
Dry Time: 8 seconds

The fourth ink in this month's Ink Drop is Sheaffer Blue-Black. Sheaffer is brand that is fairly easy to run across; you can find their writing instruments and refills in most of your local office supply stores. Aside from their fountain pens and inks, they have rollerballs, ballpoints and calligraphy products.

This is my first experience with a Sheaffer ink and to be honest I wasn't overly impressed. Maybe I was expecting a more saturated ink as this one is fairly subdued in my experience. I've found that inks from pen manufacturers tend to be a bit on the unsaturated side and this is no exception. It's not a bad color at all, I do love the shade blue-black, but if I were to use a blue-black I'd definitely go with Iroshizuku Shin-Kai, Noodler's 54th Massachusets or Rohrer & Klingner Salix.

On the positive side, the ink is very well behaved. No feather was present on my Rhodia pad and bleedthrough or ghosting were not an issue. Dry time was average, at around 8 seconds. All in all, not a bad ink; it's just not my preference. Of course that doesn't mean that it isn't your preference, so if you're looking for a nice well behaved, no fuss blue-black, pick up a bottle at Goulet or a similar retailer for $9.25 for 50mL.

Giveaway: Noodler's & Diamine Inks, Tons of Ink Samples & Nock Co. Notebooks!

Ink Review: Sheaffer Blue-Black