A squat black bottle with a white screw cap and Pelikan's blue rainbow label, printed Tusche A / Drawing ink with Schwarz · Black under it and the number 17 in the corner. The language codes D, GB, F, NL and I run down the side. The bottle holds 30 ml.

The single most important thing on this page is a warning, and it is why we wrote it before anything else: drawing ink must never go into a fountain pen. We also stock Pelikan 4001 fountain pen ink, in the same brand and the same 30 ml size, and the two bottles are not interchangeable in either direction. Drawing ink is made to sit on the paper and stay there; inside a fountain pen's feed it dries into the channels and the pen is finished. If the pen has a nib you dip, this is the right bottle. If the pen has a cartridge or a converter, buy the 4001.

What it is for is dip work. A steel nib in a holder, a reed qalam, a ruling pen, a brush loaded straight from the bottle, a technical pen designed for bottled ink — all of them take ink that is drawn from an open bottle and used immediately. That is the whole family of tools this ink belongs to.

It also happens to be the least expensive black in this shop by a distance. Our Daler-Rowney Simply Black India Ink is Rs. 2,065 for 29.5 ml; this is Rs. 720 for 30 ml — under a third of the price for the same nominal quantity of black ink. For practice sheets, lettering drills, a student's first bottle or filling a ruling pen, that gap is the whole argument.

Working habits that matter more with bottled ink than with a pen. Decant a little into a small dish rather than dipping into the bottle, so the whole 30 ml is never exposed to air and skin. Wipe the neck before capping, because dried ink on the thread is what cements a cap shut. And rinse a steel nib the moment you stop — ink left to dry on a nib is the reason nibs are thrown away.

Rs. 720 for the 30 ml bottle. Keep it capped, upright and out of the sun, and out of reach of children. Cash on Delivery is available across Pakistan, and stock, your city and delivery charges are confirmed on WhatsApp before dispatch.

Why this product is worth considering