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Athena - Nihombashi Kirin
Maruzen is one of the 713 brands in Inktend's built-in ink catalog.
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Paper & pairing
Blues and navies are the most broadly "safe" fountain pen colors: legible, professional, and unlikely to raise eyebrows in an office. This ink will behave predictably on most fountain-pen-friendly paper. Cheap, highly absorbent paper (standard copier paper) will dull any ink's saturation and can cause feathering or bleed-through with wetter nibs.
About Maruzen
Maruzen is a Japanese bookseller and trading company founded in 1869 that played a key role in introducing Western goods, including fountain pens, to Japan, becoming distributor for Onoto in 1907 and Waterman in 1911. In 1915 it launched its own Athena pen brand, which remains its house line, with modern Athena pens made for Maruzen by Pilot.
Storing and using the bottle
Bottled fountain pen ink has an effectively long shelf life when kept capped and out of direct sunlight: most inks remain usable for years. The main risk isn't the ink spoiling, it's a pen sitting inked and unused for weeks: that's what causes clogs, not the ink's age.
Frequently asked questions
Similar shades By colour distance
Color shown is a close digital approximation of a typical swatch, not a calibrated color match.