Use Of Dyes In Pelikan 100 And 100n Barrels

[mr goldfink]

I'm following up here on a discussion that I had in another post concerning Pelikan's use of dyes to tint the barrels of their vintage model 100 and 100N pens.

 

Pelikan regularly used dyes to 'sex up' the coloration of these barrels. However, Pelikan did not tint all 100 and 100N barrels. Indeed, you do get a lot of barrels that are a uniform colour (typically all red, all green, or all straw yellow celluloid) but in many cases the base material was straw yellow or sepia and the rest of the barrel was later tinted another colour (say green or red).

 

Experience suggests that the uniformly coloured barrels tend to be far more brittle than the dyed examples and the most likely explanation is that the dye used to tint the base celluloid has had a destabilising effect on the celluloid over the years.

 

Here is an example of what we are talking about in the form of a Pelikan 100N barrel from the late 1930s.

 

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f181/dasdaman/pelikan100Nbarrel001.jpg

 

Note the barrel is made of a straw yellow celluloid. The central portion of the barrel has been tinted with an orange dye and then further down towards the section end the dye is a bottle green. I assume that the bottle green colour is the result of a darker colour being applied over the orange dye.

 

When the pen's binde (Pelikan-speak for sleeve) is fitted onto the barrel all you actually see is the bottle green ink window and with quite magnificent results too I do believe.

Edited July 30, 2010 by mr goldfink

[Bo Bo Olson]

Very interesting.

Thank you for the information.

It would be handy for the day the '30s come in my need of pens.