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First off, this post is about the drop and not the ink in particular. For ink reviews, there are many on Youtube and throughout the interwebs.
Here are few points about the drop:
1. Online retail price for these bottles seems to bounce between $10 - $12/bottle. Very occasionally, you might find something for $9-ish, but you also need to check if shipping is included or not. This drop costs a scratch over $9/bottle with shipping included. That seems to be a pretty good price if you're interested in 5 bottles of these inks which are generally highly regarded.
2. As with similar drops, if you've never tried these inks, and want to see how they will work in *your* pens and on *your* paper, try samples first. I get my samples from the Goulets (reasonable price, extremely service oriented).
3. Thank you, Massdrop, for adding the swab sheet. @heeem, You made an excellent point. For those concerned about color accuracy, compare these swabs with others from places you're more familiar. This will give you a better reference point. Ink saturation in swabs will depend on how the swabs were made (instrument used to apply the ink and medium on which the ink was applied), the color calibration of your computer, etc. Again, there other places with swabs online, compare these with those.
3-A. If you want to gauge your color accuracy, compare a swab with an ink you already have. If the online swab is lighter or darker, etc, then other swabs from that same source (retailer, blogger, etc) might share the same variation.
4. Although there are lots of colors available, we all know that the popular colors go first. As soon as that happens, people get frustrated and fewer people join the drop. Let Massdrop know if you can't find the colors of your choice in any of the slots available. The sooner they know, the sooner they can possibly fix the problem. If you know you want 5 bottles (or even 4 - the 5th is virtually free), you know what colors you want and they're available, join while they're still available.
4-A. Really, let them know. They've been pretty fast with responding to those kinds of concerns, especially while the drop is still active.
5. Does anyone (or Massdrop) have a pic of how the pen rest integrates with the bottle? It might be helpful to see that in use.
As always, I hope this was helpful to the community.
Cheers.
Periodically edited for typos, grammar and clarity. Significant changes (in content) are noted as such. I have no vested interest or affiliation with Massdrop, J. Herbin or anything else related. If I did, such association would be clearly and obviously stated. Etc., etc. and so forth.
Question for anyone: If the swatch provided on the description page isn't accurate, is there a one anyone else can recommend? I've never had a chance to use any of their inks so I can't tell which ones would be considered accurate. I found these two to start with:
1)
2)
Any input on these two swatches?
Determining accuracy of ink color and behavior is very tricky when relying entirely on what you see on your screen, but there are things you can do to mitigate the issues. In no particular order,
look at a number of different swab/swatch examples. The two provided by @Meitachi are excellent. Another options is to go to: gouletpens.com -> comparison tools -> swab shop -> view by ink brand. *Warning* - you might just end up spending a bit more time than you anticipate on their site ;-).
Here are some other tricks:
1. Use your sharpest computer screen for viewing the swabs/swatches.
2. Create a point of reference. This will help immeasurably as it mitigates the weirdness created when different people use different pens and paper to show of the ink. 2-A: Do some "sample" writing with a familiar ink that's common to your ink collection and theirs. 2-B (or not 2-B): Compare and contrast your "control" with the same ink swatch/swab on your screen. Does your sample appear darker or lighter? More or less feathering? Now you have your point of reference. As long as the samples on the screen were all made the same way, you now have a vague idea of how a new ink might behave (in terms of saturation, shading, feathering).
For example: If I write with a known ink - say Diamine Ancient Copper - with a medium Metropolitan on Rhodia paper, I can clearly see the result. Then, on my computer screen, I find a swab of Ancient Copper and the swab appears to look the same, but with much more shading. Now I know that WYSIWYG for color (or saturation or whatever is the same on both), but my shading won't be as impressive as what I see on the screen. I can look at other swabs from the same source with this info in mind.
As I mentioned earlier, if you search "J. Herbin Ink Review", be prepared. There are lots. Really, sifting through them can eat up huge chunks of your time. There are also loads of reviews (with pics) for this stuff on numerous blogs, fpn and fpgeeks.
As always, I hope this was helpful to the community.
Cheers.
Edited for typos, grammar and clarity. Some changes have been made to improve readability. I have no affiliations with Massdrop or any brand or retailer mentioned in this post.