Next up in this black parade is Teranishi Guitar Antique Black!

Teranishi Chemical is a brand under the Nakabayashi company umbrella. They also own Taccia Pens (and inks), and manufacture the Yu-Sari and Logical papers, which are popular amongst fountain pen enthusiasts (although I found Yu-Sari to not be fountain pen friendly.)

Teranishi Guitar Antique Black is a warm black with a very long name. Most of the black inks I’ve tried have been on the cool end of the spectrum, or a nice neutral. Antique Black is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. It’s very red. So much so that it can sheen red – although that only really shows up in swatches.

That redness and warmth look pretty interesting, but unless you have it side-by-side with a cool or neutral black, you won’t really notice it. And unless you’re dumping the ink onto the page, you won’t notice the red sheen. So really, it’s just a fairly normal-looking, relatively dark black ink.

It has a pretty average flow and behaves fairly average as well. On anything better than cheap copy paper, you won’t see much bleeding or feathering. It’s not waterproof, but has some water resistance.

It takes forever to dry. And even when dry, it wants to smear, especially on paper that tries to show off the red sheen.

Teranishi’s inks come in 40ml glass bottles that cost around $23 USD. That’s on the pricey side, but not the priciest. But for a slightly premium price, I would have expected a slightly premium ink, and this ink really underwhelmed me. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it either.

I got my sample from Vanness, and you can find full bottles there, or at JetPens. I’m not affiliated with either store. I got the sample for Christmas. But I like both retailers.