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Cranberry Sauce
Vanness 1938 is one of the 713 brands in Inktend's built-in ink catalog.
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Paper & pairing
Reds and pinks show the most dramatic shading of any color family: expect real variation between the edges and center of each letter. 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 Vanness 1938
Vanness Pens is a family-run pen shop in Little Rock, Arkansas, opened by Orville Vanness in 1938 and now operated by his grandson Mike as a third-generation business. Today it is one of the best-known fountain pen and ink retailers in the US, stocking a huge range of inks alongside pens, paper and accessories. It also offers shop-exclusive house inks, including its annual Fountain Pen Day editions.
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.