I just picked up some Parker Micro-Film Black ink from Pendemonium. I thought it might be interesting to do a review of a sixty year old ink, so here goes. Sam was offering the ink in two sizes, 2 ounce and 4 ounce. I bought two of each, I don't know why, I rarely use black ink, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Here is a picture of the ink and the dip pen I used for the test:




Both of the large bottles were full. One of the small bottles was full, the other was about three quarters full. The bottles have a nice art deco design, but the cap is small, filling a large pen could present a problem. Here's a writing sample:



The ink looked good under strong light, no SITB, so I opened the bottle, dipped the pen and started writing. It is a very smooth writing ink. The dip pen I am using has a tipped nib on a regular fp feed, so one dip will write several paragraphs. The ink flow was excellent, laying down a nice wet line without noticable feathering on the papers I used. The ink tends to look reddish-brown under my Halogen desk lamp, and purple when rinsed out of the pen.

I did a water test to see if Micro-film ink was any more water resistant than Parker's modern inks:



I left the paper in water for thirty minutes. As you can see, this is not a waterproof ink, but it is still legible after a soaking.

I'd like to thank the people at Pendemonium for offering this little piece of writing history for sale. No affiliation, just a very happy customer. Thanks for looking.

Larry

Thanks for the review. I think I like that color.

Interesting review thanks for that and now a question

Is it ink that will write on micro-film, or ink that shows up well when copied to micro-film? I suspect the later, but does the pack give any more clues?

On the subject of really strange ink, I had some stuff around that was for making alterations to the stencils for a duplicator, anybody remember those?

Jim

Hi Jim,

The box doesn't say anything about writing on micro-film. I read somewhere that micro-film has an extended red sensitivity, you can't use a red safelight in a darkroom to develop it. I have seen two inks marked as "micro-film", the Parker here, and a Carter's that I saw at a pen show. Both inks showed a red tint, possibly to show up better on high contrast micro-film. You can really see the red component of the ink in the water test.

On the subject of stencils for duplicators, I used to be on the AV staff at school in 5th grade. We occasionally had to run off flyers on one of those contraptions. I'll be 50 next month, so that was a lonnnnng time ago.

Larry

If you remember making corrections to those mimeograph stencils...
You are older than dirt...



LIKE ME!!!!! :doh: :doh:

:bunny1: :bunny1:

Hi Larry and OldGriz (Tom),

Oh what a trip down memory lane Talking about ink, the tubes for the duplicators smelt so wonderful. Probably totally carcinogenic, like the Quink will be, as I can see Solv-X on the label <_<

As to age, well I am in my 55th year, but mentally 54 going on 18

So I am of the age to remember lots of useful stuff apart from fountain pens, well I could but then I forget :doh: Do you guys get somewhere to do something, get distracted by something else and then can't remember why the hell you were there in the first place? Or is it just me?

Duplicators, wonderful things, I had a old hand operated Gestetner, that I traded in when I bought a reconditioned electric one. Then rather than typing the stencil I had this thing with a big drum that made a stencil from an original with electrostatic sparks. Great machine, smelt like the dodgems at the fairground Oh yes and then there was those funny spirit duplicators, only printed in blue I remember and the copies were very limited and the last ones were really faint. Seem to remember those from school I think, but then again..............

I wish I still had the old hand operated one, great things for doing quick forms and the like. I am secretary of a rifle club locally and the photocopy bill is something to behold.

Remember you might think you are having a bad day, but it ain't that bad you woke up

Jim

I think that the Micro-Film ink by Parker was developed for use with V-Mail during WWII. Waterman also had its version.

V-Mail used official "Envo-letters", which were combination sheets and envelopes. They were used for "rush photographic mail to our armed forces overseas".

The messages were sent to a common point, microfilmed and then the miniature photographic negative of the message would be sent by "the most expeditious transportation availabel for reproduction and delivery".

No, I'm not that old, I just happen to have a package of V-mail sheets next to me.

Gary, I did a search for 'Microfilm history' on Google, it seems that microfilm has been around since the mid 1800's. US banks were using it to store copies of checks in the 1920's. V-mail during the WWII was seen as a way to reduce the weight of mail shipped to servicemen and women around the world. If you like history, it makes for interesting reading.

Jim, what was it I was going to say?... oh yeah, that forgetfulness thing never happens to me.

Very cool ! Thanks for the description and image sample. The slight purplishness/reddishness comes through on my monitor.

This review confirms my guess about what was special about microfilm ink. As gary says, it was an ink for writing on letter forms to be microfilmed for airmail delivery to the troops. Microfilm can be made in all sorts of colour sensitivities, but during WW II panchromatic (red sensitive) film was relatively new, and it was cheaper to use film sensitive to only blue ("ordinary") or blue and green ("orthochromatic") film. They might even have used the film used for making positive prints from the black and white negatives of movies ("positive" film), which was cheap and produced in mega quantities. So, if the film was only sensitive to blue light, the ink that would produce the best contrast would be a black-tending-towards-red, rather than the black-tending-towards-blue that some of us might prefer for ordinary writing, or the blue-black that was a common ink used at the time.

Perhaps I should explain that with the negative-positive process used in microfilming, you want to have as little photographically effective light coming from the writing as possible, so that on the neg it is clear, and the paper is as dark as possible.

So thanks for the review, Larry.

I have, though, always wondered about the logistics of that operation. If you're sending the mail to the troops, microfilm takes up less transportation than the letters, but OTOH you have to get the photographic paper and chemicals to the distribution point, and support the photographic staff there. I suppose it made sense because you could send all that stuff by ship, and just fly in the microfilms. But it must have been pretty marginal, I'd have thought.

Best

Michael