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Higgins Calligraphy Ink


zerodgz

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I have a question, and I figured you lot would be the right lot to ask.

 

I picked up a bottle of "Higgins Calligraphy Ink" at my local Art Barn, mainly because it's black and cheap, and I use black ink in quantity. The box proclaims that it's safe for use in fountain pens, but I have my doubts. This is the exact bottle in question:

 

http://dgz.serveftp.net:1337/zero/pics/higgins.jpg

 

I've found a bunch of conflicting information on this online. The marketing copy, of course, says that the stuff can be used in fountain pens. However, it's also billed as a waterproof ink and waterproof inks in general don't play well in fountain pens. Some sources also say that the stuff is an india ink, while other sources are silent on this. Still more sources (including a thread on this very forum) seem to indicate that Higgins Eternal and Higgins Calligraphy are two different inks, and yet more sources indicate that very little/none of what Higgins make is intended for fountain pens, but is meant for dip pens. Which is fine, I have plenty of those, too.

 

(Deep breath.)

 

In other news, I think this stuff clogged up my Ohto F-Lapa. I was having pretty bad flow issues and found that the Higgins ink was a royal (bleep) trying to clean out - I wound up having to use methylated spirits! So before I expend the energy in gumming up a different pen with the stuff by way of experimentation, am I barking up the wrong tree entirely?

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Higgins says every one of their ink is good for FPs. I assure you they are not. Keep them to dip pens.

 

One possible exception. There is the Osmiroid Indian Ink nib which says it was designed for using Indian ink. I yet to try mine.

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I certainly don't have a definitive answer, but my personal opinion is that I would never use any Higgins ink in a fountain pen. Not unless they expended some marketing effort to explain why their inks are fine for fountain pens and print on every bottle "Safe for fountain pens". I suspect you may also have one data point, but it might be worth an experiment with another pen. Note it can take a while (days or weeks) to find out something's fishy with an ink.

 

One final datum: note that there are no ink reviews on any Higgins inks here. To me, that's the death blow -- if a company wanted to sell into the fountain pen market and didn't know enough to figure out they better get their ink reviewed here, then their marketing department is managed and staffed by australopithecines.

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Well, it took me about two hours to figure out something was gummed up in my F-Lapa. I cleaned the pants off of it and refilled with Skrip and it's working fine. I'll have to dig out another cheap pen to potentially throw on the sacrificial pyre by testing the stuff more according to your plan. The Ohto was only ten bucks so I'm not too worried about it... My Targa, Latitude, and so forth are a wee bit more valuable (and I don't even know how to pull the tip off of the Targa) so I'm a bit shy about testing in them.

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  • 2 years later...

I use it on my cheap steel nib Chinese-made pens and it works fine. Especially if i use it at least a few times a week it won't dry up on me, and even i dont it'll start writing without too much hassle.

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In other news, I think this stuff clogged up my Ohto F-Lapa. I was having pretty bad flow issues and found that the Higgins ink was a royal <i>(bleep)</i> trying to clean out - I wound up having to use methylated spirits! So before I expend the energy in gumming up a different pen with the stuff by way of experimentation, am I barking up the wrong tree entirely?

 

Greetings zerodgz,

 

In a word, YES.

 

All the best,

 

Sean :)

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/

 

"Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven." - MT. 10:32

"Any society that will give up liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both." - Ben Franklin

Thank you Our Lady of Prompt Succor & St. Jude.

 

 

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I don't think anyone at Higgins even knows what a fountain pen is. I'd avoid their inks unless you're going dip nib-style kung fu.

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As a former illustrator I used Higgins & Pelikan inks for drawing, using dip pens and mechanical pens for many years. It was common knowledge not to use these inks in fountain pens. We had to use Rapideze(sp.) to clean out the rapidograph pens and some times used that stuff in an ultrasonic cleaner. I'm very suspicious of this new stuff that Higgins says is fountain pen ink. I think the burden of proof is on Higgins. Even they don't seem to know its composition. On their website: http://www.higginsinks.com/specialty/index.html

they say "The ink is pigment based or dye based and dries quickly to a beautiful matte finish."

With so many other beautiful inks available why would anyone take a chance ruining a good fountain pen?

Just my two cents. Turlough

There is only one admirable form of the imagination: the imagination that is so intense that it creates a new reality, that it makes things happen.

- Seán O'Faolain

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On their website: http://www.higginsinks.com/specialty/index.html

they say "The ink is pigment based or dye based and dries quickly to a beautiful matte finish."

That text isn't from the description of the black calligraphy ink, though.

 

I haven't used black, but I can verify that the sepia, at least, is very much a well-behaved fountain pen ink -- lubricating, with moderate flow (not wet or dry), and non-clogging.

 

However, one problem with Higgins is that they have such a welter of black inks. I don't think there's anything wrong with their formulation, but their descriptions are very vague. In the case of the text that you quoted, it's used for both the Eternal and Fountain Pen India descriptions, and seems like placeholding boilerplate (FP India isn't this-or-that, it's a non-waterproof carbon ink).

 

-- Brian

fpn_1375035941__postcard_swap.png * * * "Don't neglect to write me several times from different places when you may."
-- John Purdue (1863)

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I haven't used black, but I can verify that the sepia, at least, is very much a well-behaved fountain pen ink -- lubricating, with moderate flow (not wet or dry), and non-clogging.

I'm wary of Higgins Sepia. It may have been a coincidence, but I think I did in a Cross Century II with this ink.

 

Another widely distributed maker who make dubious claims of FP safety on some inks is Winsor & Newton. I've seriously clogged a Phileas with a single fill of their Indian Red (I think ... that was 10 years ago). Their inks are also conspicuously absent from the FPN ink reviews, like Higgins, as pointed out by someonesdad (still true and there are a lot more reviews than in 2009 when he posted that).

 

Both nice colours -- pity. When I learned about ammonia and the rubber bulb trick, I was able to get both pens flowing again (even after sitting clogged for a decade), so maybe it's okay to experiment with inexpensive pens.

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Just to add one other experience . . . .

I was buying some stuff from a local art supply store during a big sale and noticed the Higgins nonwaterproof sepia. It was very inexpensive so I bought a bottle to experiment with. I ended up liking the color and have have been running it in one pen or another for well over a year now without problem. I was in the same store a few months ago and decided out of curiosity to pick up a container of Higgins nonwaterproof black ink (vs. their regular calligraphy black ink). The first thing I did was test it for water resistance; the label may say "nonwaterproof," but I found that not much of it disappeared when soaked. I've been using it over the past three months in a Dollar piston pen and it's been fine; in fact, I've found it to be an extremely smooth-writing ink. What I do notice, however, is that it sometimes dries on the nib if the pen sits unused for more than a couple of days--the Higgins website indicates that this ink is dye- and pigment-based, so that may explain this tendency. In any case, a quick dip in some water gets the pen going again, but I won't use the black nonwaterproof ink in anything but a cheap pen. In contrast, I've not encountered any bad behavior at all from the Higgins nonwaterproof sepia, which is solely dye-based (though I still avoid using it in my better pens, just to be safe).

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I'm wary of Higgins Sepia. It may have been a coincidence, but I think I did in a Cross Century II with this ink. ...When I learned about ammonia and the rubber bulb trick, I was able to get both pens flowing again (even after sitting clogged for a decade), so maybe it's okay to experiment with inexpensive pens.

I'm sorry to hear that! Is the Cross crippled now?

 

I ended up liking the [sepia] and have have been running it in one pen or another for well over a year now without problem.

My experience is somewhat similar, and my own sometimes negligent pen habits probably demonstrate that this ink can be safe. I've had a Touchdown filled with it for probably over 2 months. Most of the time it just sits with ink in it. I've refilled a couple of times, but haven't flushed the pen, and it's working just fine.

 

-- Brian

Edited by Tweel

fpn_1375035941__postcard_swap.png * * * "Don't neglect to write me several times from different places when you may."
-- John Purdue (1863)

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@Turlough&Others

 

What would you consider the best way to clean a tec stylo? I have a very fine one, with clogged Scribtol inside (please, don't ask! :headsmack: ). I am a little frightened because of the plastic and celluloid, I don't want the pen to go south. I have enough stuff here, different pure substances, Higgins pen cleaner, aso.

<a href="http://www.nerdtests.com/ft_nt2.php">

<img src="http://www.nerdtests.com/images/badge/nt2/01302604ed3a4cac.png" alt="NerdTests.com says I'm an Uber Cool Nerd God. Click here to take the Nerd Test!">

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The Truth is Five but men have but one word for it. - Patamunzo Lingananda

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I also had a bad run in with Windsor and Newton, ruined a cheap japanes pen I got from fleabay.

 

Personally, if you are not sure it is for FP, or if it is not waterbased, keep it out of your pens.

 

With that said, they are your pens, so do as you will......

Now if only Noodler's would make a refillable dry-erase marker, I would buy a lifetime supply....

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@Turlough&Others

 

What would you consider the best way to clean a tec stylo? I have a very fine one, with clogged Scribtol inside (please, don't ask! :headsmack: ). I am a little frightened because of the plastic and celluloid, I don't want the pen to go south. I have enough stuff here, different pure substances, Higgins pen cleaner, aso.

 

Rapido-eze and ultrasonic cleaner. Rapido-eze seems to be detergent and ??? based. It is whitish and translucent and does not have a solvent smell, if I recollect correctly.

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I'm wary of Higgins Sepia. It may have been a coincidence, but I think I did in a Cross Century II with this ink. ...When I learned about ammonia and the rubber bulb trick, I was able to get both pens flowing again (even after sitting clogged for a decade), so maybe it's okay to experiment with inexpensive pens.

I'm sorry to hear that! Is the Cross crippled now?

No, as it says in what you quoted, ammonia and a rubber bulb did the trick. (Or is "crippled cross" a joke?...) Maybe you would like to be the first to add a Higgins ink review and lend it more credibility? I liked the colour a lot (although it was only the first brown ink I'd tried), so much so that I found a dealer and bought another bottle before I noticed the problems. That bottle may have experienced some evaporation, but there's a lot of precipitate in it now. What the heck, I will try filtration and load it up in a school pen or something for nostalgia sake!

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I used Higgins Sepia ages ago - it was, at the time, the only brown ink my stationer sold. Written material from that period (circa 1977) shows no appreciable degradation. The pens I inked with Higgins Sepia are (mostly) still with me and are functioning flawlessly. The pens that aren't were either lightfingered (a yellow Montblanc Carrera) or consigned to the midden heap because they were junk in the first place. Er, back to the point. I would reckon that Higgins Sepia was the only ink I used for about 4-5 years in those pens, until I found Montblanc in brown.

 

Why did I switch to the Montblanc? Because I used whatever brown I found on the stationer's shelves. I didn't give up the Higgins Sepia because the MB was so much better. I picked it because it was brown. And my pens seemed just as happy with one or the other.

 

What does that mean for Higgins Sepia? Hey, you got me. Nobody ever thought of "ink safety" in those days. Well, nobody I talked to, anyway. You bought the ink, you filled your pen, you wrote stuff. The pens that lived on a diet of Higgins Sepia for all those years are still alive and well. More than I can say for the typewriters I used then.

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I work in a hobby store that sells a large portion of the Higgins brand. I can say from experience that if it says non-waterproof you should be ok. I have left a cheap manuscript calligraphy pen filled with Higgins non-waterproof black fountain pen ink for over 2 months and it was still more then happy to write when touched to paper. Tried the same thing with many of their calligraphy inks and the pen clogged up in under an hour and needed a good bit of work to fix. I have also noticed that the almost any Higgins ink that is water proof is some kind of India ink. That lacquer is a real bear to clean out of fine nib pens :crybaby:

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OK, I'm basically satisfied with the positive accounts I'm hearing. My experience may have been due to other causes. (As for Winsor-Newton -- although this thread is not about that -- I stand by the unsuitability of those inks for FPs.) In fact I found my old bottle just now ... this is amazing considering how many times I've moved since it was purchased. Seems to be about 4/5 evaporated, but the box says to dilute with distilled water so, yeah, I'll give it a go -- in a cheap pen! I'm grateful for the positive experience shared (uzih, Tweel, rockydoggy, Trebster, zenadier). Although this thread still amounts to a "mixed message", and I'm still puzzled why the ink has never been reviewed here.

 

[ edit: i should be clear that i'm speaking of the Sepia non-waterproof specifically. ]

Edited by andru
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