Teranishi Traveling Sepia and Antique Black; and a meditation on brown

I’ve been contemplating how much we might or might not be susceptible to trends within our communities of interest. Earlier this year I rebelled against Pantone Brown as a concept and a color, and I’m still not a fan — the turd-shaped projection for 2025 is certainly a self-fulfilling prophesy. Still, brown inks have been making the rounds in the stationery world - I see them on Instagram, I hear about them from friends, I read reviews of brown inks on my favorite blogs. Brown is a color which has been, so far, underused in my ink library, with a few exceptions - I love Herbin’s Kenzo Takada Shogun (an elegant black brown with shimmer), FWP Land of Shangri-La (an alluring green-brown with shimmer)… and I love the latest addition to my Montblanc ink lineup, MB Sand of the Desert, an elegant dark brown with no shimmer. This should have been enough for my use case, but the general community interest in the color has made me curious. The floodgates of brown ink have been opened.

Teranishi Traveling Sepia, a few samples from Vanness, and my pre-existing Montblanc Sand of the Desert

Are trends always bad? I don’t think so. Trends, like FOMO, get a bad rep, but they are a social phenomenon - when we care about our communities, we are influenced by them, we want to belong by sharing experiences and yes, acquisitions (which are experiences too). It is easy enough to overdo, ending up with possessions we do not much care about, which clog our spaces when the latest fad invariably passes. The stationery community is social, but writing is a solitary endeavor for the most part: you must hear the song of your stationery when you are alone. After all the reviewing, the sharing, the comparing, and the swapping is done, the things that remain in use are the things that please you. We can find what we like within the trends, and that too is my remedy against FOMO. Over the years, I have developed a fairly good understanding of my preferences, so I can figure out what currently trendy things I will love, and what would only be a passing fancy. Still, it is easy to overshoot one’s targets even in the best of circumstances. At this time last year, I had a single brown pen, and now I have four; I think I’ll be happy with going down to three. Time will tell.

The Onoto Sequoyah pen with Menagerie friends beadcat and roadrunner.

Nothing could influence me to love Mocha Mousse, but I ordered a bunch of brown samples from my favorite brands - Scribo and Teranishi for the most part, and some Diamine and Dominant Industry, to match my new brown Onoto Sequoyah. This pen came out in 2021, and since then I always thought I would eventually add it to my lineup. The acquisition process was not perfect, but Onoto were good to work with; the end result is also not perfect, but I love this pen. I also love Teranishi as a brand, and unsurprisingly my two bottle upgrades have been Teranishi Antique Black and Teranishi Traveling Sepia.

A deskscape for this review. For the inky experiments I drew two birds based on the cast iron bird. It’s been gloomy here, and the colors are difficult to photograph, but I think the mood comes through.

I’m not a fan of black, but this is not exactly a black. It’s really more of a very dark brown, a faded black-brown of rusted things, of antique metal most of all. It reminds me of my menagerie bird, which belonged, at some point, at a wrought-iron grate or another architectural element long since crumbled. It is a color of faded and loved things which is starker in darkness, softer in the diffuse light of a rainy morning. What seduced me here originally was the label - it is brown-colored and tactile, vintage in feel, and the contents did not disappoint. I inked my Aurora Optima with it, and it’s now on the very last drops.

Teranishi Antique Black on Midori paper

Teranishi Traveling Sepia was more of a companion purchase - since I’m into Antique Black so much, I wanted to try a more traditional brown from the lineup. If Antique Black is the dark brown of iron, then Traveling Sepia is the well-aged wood, warm and polished to smoothness. It’s sometimes hard for me to discern small differences in hue when it comes to brown, and I do not yet know if this brown is particularly unique, but it is very pleasant. The shading is superb.

A writing sample of both Teranishi Traveling Sepia and Teranishi Antique Black on Plotter paper.

I’m usually into dark, dark, dark, so Traveling Sepia ended up lighter than my existing bottles of brown ink - though in fairness I have a just few other bottles. If we expand our definition of brown to everything Montblanc calls marron, then I have quite a few - but I believe that Jane Austen is purplegrey, 80 Days Brown is elephant grey, and Encre du Desert is a burgundy - leaving me only with Sand of the Desert and Stevenson as my pre-existing browns, not counting samples. Teranishi Traveling Sepia now joins my brown Montblancs and other Teranishis as a chestnut brown go-to. I am inking it for the first time today as the second ink fill in my Onoto Sequoyah.

Teranishi Traveling Sepia inside a bird :) on Midori paper.

I feel the need to ink a teal to accompany all those browns. A glorious teal to offset and highlight the dark, antique, polished feel of them - like turquoise against old wood. I think Turquoise de Perse will soon make its way back to the currently inked lineup.

After the ink deluge which was 2024, I am pacing myself in 2025. I am up to four bottles by the end of May. I am happy to spend more time with my two new Teranishi bottles. I am curious what I will think about them after the brown trend is done; time will tell. But I think some of these dark, moody browns will be right at home here, among my books and wood and other friends.

Two new Teranishi inks with some old metal browns - a cast iron menagerie bird, and an Arts and Crafts copper plate with hammered flowers and shells.