So assuming the ink is more or less the same density as water (i.e. 1ml=1g), the price is nearly 15 times as expensive as silver, or about one third the price of gold.
Which is why the companies give away printers to people.
I’m not quite as confused as the people at canon, but are canon printers different from any other I’ve used in that you have more than one option for cartridges? All the HP and Lexmark printers I’ve ever owned have only taken one number each for black and for color. My current printer, for example takes Black #32 and Color #33 and that’s all it will accept for cartridges.
Really now?
Many printers have had optional cartridges over the years for different reasons.
The one I’m asking about has a regular ink volume cartridge, or a larger volume ink cartridge. They put more ink into the CL-51, which is a better value in this case, but puts it into a higher price range. Many sales depend on price point not value to sell. In other words the cartridge is cheaper and the person wants to spend less right now.
Hey, that’s what the cash register says. Who can argue with that? 
I was travelling last December and stopped for gas in Tuscon. It was time to get dinner, and there was a Wendy’s right across for the gas station. What the hell, I thought, and went inside. Waiting in line, I watch the kid behind the counter fumble at the fryer, dumping in some potatos. He was half successful, gettting half of the frys in the basket and half on the floor. He didn’t bother cleaning up the floor, but at least he didn’t pick them up and toss them in the fryer. I think he would have, but he had to get back to the counter. A customer is there with a problem:
Customer: “we only ordered two drinks. There are three here.”
Kid: “Ok, I’ll take it back.”
They stare at each other in silence for a few long seconds.
Customer: “What about the money? You charged me for three drinks.”
Kid: “Oh. Do you want the money back?”
Customer: “Yeah, I think that would be nice.”
Kid: “OK.” stares at the register for a minute. “I’ll need to get the manager.”
So a few minutes later, and it’s my turn. I’ve decided on the $5 combo meal or whatever they have there. Kid rings it up.
Kid: “That’s $7.”
Dag: “Huh?”
Kid: “The total is $7.”
Dag: “for a $5 meal?”
Kid: “Well, there is tax.”
Dag: "$2 tax? "
Kid: “Yes.”
Dag: “care to check that?”
Kid (looking at register): “Yeah, that’s what the register says.”
Dag: “Forget it.”
I don’t want to argue with him. I don’t need this particular food, I don’t even care for Wendy’s that much. I turn and take a few steps. Then I sort of snap. Damn it, I came in here for food, and if I don’t get it I’ll have to waste my time somewhere else. I want to get back on the road, not fuck around in Tucson for crappy food. I turn back and get in his face.
Dag: " Doesn’t that make any sense to you? $2 tax on a $5 order?"
Kid: “that’s what the register says.”
Dag: “Do you have any common sense? Does 40% sound like a reasonable sales tax?”
Kid: “I don’t know.”
Dag: “Just think about it for a minute.”
Kid: “I’m not that good at thinking.”
Dag: “Yeah, no kidding.”
By that time the manager was there. The customers in line heard all of this. I didn’t really want to be there anymore so I left.
And I felt like shit driving home. The kid probably should be in charge of money, but he really didn’t need any shit from me. Sorry about that, Kid.
Note to self: Don’t waste your 5 minutes editing small typos when you have bigger mistakes in your post.
The kid probably shouldn’t be in charge of money
I used to think that - having never worked retail. I couldn’t see how someone couldn’t do the math quickly in their head.
Then, I volunteered for something as “cash register person” for a day. For the first hour or so, it was exactly as I suspected it should be. They’d give me money, I’d give them change. By the end of the day, after sales and scurrying, and check and charge and cash and “the first $25 on check and the rest in cash,” and everything else, I was doing what the cash register said. If something looked horribly wrong, I’d usually notice it. But switching tracks from ringing things up to fixing the problem was not always as smooth as I wanted it to be. That 50cent change thing, (which I do all the time) took a few seconds. 75 cents is even harder to recognize.
I still do it. I’m just more understanding when it takes a while for the cashier to figure out the change.
In fact, this is what I suspect actually happened here:
Despite the various names, you are not talking to any human person here.
Canon, like many companies, is using a computerized system to answer email support questions. This system looks up keywords from the customer email, matches them to various pre-written answer texts, assembles those into an email and sends that to you. Adding a randomly-chosen human name as the signature.
By mentioning the CL-52, you were providing an additional, irrelevant keyword to their automated search algorithm. But it tried to make some sense of that, and came up with its closest match for an answer. Which didn’t help you. In your next message, when you mentioned CL-41, CL-51, and photo inks, it again tried to find a match for that, and told you that CL-41 & Cl-51 are not photo inks, the CL-52 is the photo ink cartridge.
It was when you sent in your question mentioning only CL-41 & CL-51 and ink volume, without any mention of CL-52 or photo ink, that the automated system was able to find the answer you wanted.
These automated response systems generally don’t expect to see keywords for information you don’t want to know, so they get confused by that.
Sometimes these systems are semi-automated: a human quickly scans your email looking for keywords & enters them into the computerized answer generator. And they can make typos when entering this info, so the answer is irrelevant. That might explain your original answer, if the entry clerk keyed CL-52 instead of CL-51. It’s pretty clear that original answer was only about CL-41 & CL-52, with nothing about CL-51 or photo inks.
These computerized answer systems are often just automating what you can do yourself, if the company provides a ‘knowledge base’ or extensive FAQ that you can search.
If you are interested in verifying that Canon is using such an automated support scheme, you can try sending in your exact email a few more times, spaced over a couple of days. If you get the same answer (maybe even the exact same wording), but probably different names signed to it, you’ll know you’re talking to a computer, not any humans.
For a second test, you might try cutting out extra words in your emails, and seeing if you still get the same answers. You can probably get down to this, and get the same (correct) answer: