New Pen and Ink Day: Sailor TUZU Adjust Crystal Violet and Robert Oster Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty

Got some fun mail today. My order from Endless Pens: a Sailor TUZU Adjust in Crystal Violet and the Endless Pens x Robert Oster Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty ink.

A long time ago I'd seen a newsletter from Endless Pens about the Crystal Violet TUZU and forgot about it. But then I was reminded of it again recently and decided to pick it up, because it had stuck in my mind enough for me to still want it weeks or months later.

Despite the Sailor TUZU Adjust's comparatively high price for other pens in its category, I liked it enough to buy 3 of them. 😅

The first one I bought was the Translucent Violet, with a F nib. I think this was my first Sailor with a steel nib. I liked it, but wanted to see what the M nib was like, so I got another TUZU in Crystal White (clear) with the M nib. Depending on the ink, the M can feel a bit wide for my preferences, but I do like it for showing off shading and other ink properties. I think I may have used a shimmer ink in the M nib also? Hard to remember without checking my records.

When I saw the Crystal Violet version, I wanted to grab it right away. But because it was a pre-order on Endless Pens, I decided to wait for other retailers to get it, since pre-orders on Endless Pens can take forever to ship. The only other retailers that seemed to carry it were overseas, and I didn't want to deal with the tariffs and whatnot. So I forgot about it for a while, thinking it would eventually land at JetPens or something. But a long time passed and it didn't seem like other US retailers were going to carry it. So I went searching for the pen again, initially not remembering that it was at Endless Pens. For a little while I wondered if I imagined the colorway because my searches wouldn't turn up the pen I was looking for, just the original Translucent Violet. It wasn't until I got another ad from Endless Pens that I remembered the whole deal with it before, but this time I caved and pre-ordered. And while I was at it, I finally picked up the Endless x Robert Oster Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty ink that I'd been eyeing forever. Of course, I wanted other stuff, but I refrained. 😝 The pre-order did take a while; it shipped a couple days shy of a month later. 🤷‍♀️

Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty is a nice warmish gray with blue and violet shading (hard to see the blue in this "adjusted as best as I can" scan). It reminds me of Pilot Iroshizuku Kiri-Same, but with violet shading. I think this is what I expected when I heard about Montblanc Homage to Jane Austen Umber, or other gray inks that are supposed to have purple undertones that ultimately I couldn't see. Maybe a bit later I'll do a comparison with my other gray inks. For now, hopefully this swatch helps.

I ended up inking the Crystal Violet pen with this gray ink. I have a couple other pens in my currently inked batch already with a purple or purple-y ink, so I just went for the easy option. So far my batch of currently inked pens is the smallest its been in a while. I added this TUZU Adjust, but I have another pen that I pulled for cleaning out. I have a few other pens I want to clean out also, so I'll have to peek at my fall-ish inks to see what I feel like. Grays have been dominating the currently inked pens recently. We'll see if I break out of it. 😅