I know it seems a silly topic but... since I've done a little restoration recently on a half-dozen pens (mostly Sheaffer) it *appears* that almost every vintage pen I've gotten or restored had a ton of blue-black ink gunk in it. It's possible it wasn't blue-black but that it had somehow been altered over the years to appear to be blue-black. But...

This includes a re-sacced Esterbrook deskpen I bought on the bay - it's base flute was full of blue-black debris. all of the Sheaffers I got from my sibling (who had not used them and indeed has probably never used blue-black ink anyway.) It did not include my Pel 120 from Rick who obviously thoroughly cleans the pens he sells.

so - for folks like Keith, viv, brian... do you think this is the most popular ink left in old pens? or is it just that my small sample is skewed. It's possible the handful of Sheaffers I have all came from the same owner..

I have soaked/cleaned about 30 pens that I bought used.

I would say it would work out about 60% blue/black,38% black and the rest would be red or green.Just my limited experience.

Feff

Strangely enough...I find a lot of what looks like Sheaffer Peacock blue in many old pens as well as unidentifiable blues and blacks.

Every once in a while I'll come across something unusual like green, purple, or red.

Since I don't (yet) restore vintage pens myself, I can't directly comment on this from personal knowledge.

However, I'm old enough that I recall most pens described as vintage in daily use either by me and my peers or our parents.

To the best of my recollection, most adults at that time (1940's to 1950's) were using a blue-black ink. I remember that it seemed unusual that my father used jet black ink. I recall his saying that it was required by his employer.

In grade school, we all used Esterbrooks and were required to use Sheaffer Washable Blue Ink. I suppose that its color could be described as Peacock blue.

Of today's inks, the closest in hue to the Sheaffer Washable Blue that I've found seems to be Herbin Bleu Pervenche.

Nurses (my mother was one), doctors, accountants, and teachers used red ink. No one to my knowledge used anything other than blue, black, blue-black, or red. (There must have been users of the other colors, since the inks were manufactured but these persons were unknown to anyone of my acquaintance).

Until I started accumulating pens, I used only black ink; now my journals reflect a rainbow of color.

In my limited experience, it has been blue-black. zzzzzzzzz.

Hi,

Most of the pens I have cleaned contained blue-black. There was only one blue in the bunch.

Dillon

Every pen I've refurb'ed had blue-black ink in it. I know it hasn't been that many, but they've all had it. <_<

Blue/black by a wide margin.

custar

Just received a pen yesterday...Sure enough, blue-black ink to clean out!

Blue-black is one color of ink I've never bought, and have no plans to buy.

All the pens I have cleaned from the 1930's to 1950's have been either blue or blue/black.

A recent and interesting point about ink color:

Several years ago a company with whom I worked was going through a quality control standards process in its quest to win the Malcom Baldridge Quaility Award. I was on one of the standards team and we set a standard that all original documents had to be signed with blue ink. The reason was that the copy technology had gotten so good that it was hard at times to tell the diffeence between originals and copies. Most of the employees balked at this because almost everyone was using black ink in their ball point and rollerball pens. Kcat's post reminded me of this and cause me to wonder if there is some cultural or historical force that seems to cause folks to use the same color ink for a period of time. Another example of this is that teachers and professors used to use red ink to mark up papers. (I really came to dislike red ink!) But now there has been a change in academia to use purple ink in place of the red. I am told that this is because purple ink is more gentle one's eyes. Still, If I were to receive a paper marked up with purple ink I might dislike that as much as the red.

A "new" Waterman's 14 is coloring its soaking water sepia (or maybe orange?). Never seen this before.

Most of the old pens I clean are German and have had blue-black ink in them. I do get a number that look like a full load of Penman Saphire has petrified in their inards. When I see that first explosion of blue in the sink I know I am going to have to flush for a while. (Not as bad as when I dropped and broke a full bottle of Noodler's on the floor though.)

Hi,

The worst was when I had to clean a full load of drawing ink out of five stylographical pens. The pens were not clogged, but the ink was sooo hard to remove. I had to rinse, rub, and ultrasonically clean them.

Dillon

Funny you mention this as I was just flushing out a little Scheaffer Admiral that I picked up recently and it, like most other used pens I've purchased that weren't previously flushed, sure enough had blue/black or some dark blue in it. That's why the Pelikan M200 I also picked up recently was so surprising when it showed traces of what appeared to be Habanero or some other sort of burnt orange ink in it (clearly another FPN type!).

FWIW - my father was of the WWII generation, was an accountant by early training, and was a penaholic although never into upper level pens. He started me with fountain pens and kept me supplied with as much Skrip washable blue, Skrip emerald green, and Quink green and red as I could use. Back in those days accountants used (and still do to this day although for different reasons) a lot of green and red. I don't recall the exact assignment but I believe credits were in green and debits in red when doing manual bookkeeping entries. Anyway, green remained his signature color for most of his life whether in a ballpoint, rollerball or fountain pen.

These days there are a lot of legal documents where it has become a standard to always sign in blue ink due to the copying issues mentioned above.

As far as I know, black ink was used for all entries and subsequent positive balances while red ink was used to denote deficits.

The green ink was used to make non-financial notations or indicate where a correction was made.

This is the system I use when doing accounts as despite the resources to do them electronically, I prefer the old fashioned route of using pen and paper.

A similar standard has evolved in the legal world. When I started practicing almost 30 years ago, it was common to see letters, court papers and contracts signed in black ink. But with the advent of high-res black & white copiers, blue became de rigueur. /:) Papers signed in black ink drive court clerks up the wall, because it's hard to distinguish an original from a photocopy. In NY, some clerks flat-out reject papers signed in black, even though, AFAIK, there is no rule against it.

Apropos of all that, I recently rediscovered Noodler's Aquamarine Contract Blue (sold by Chuck Swisher). When it first came out, last year, I complained about it being too light and insubstantial-looking. I don't remember what pen I was using, but now, in my Aurora Optima B or Lamy 2000 M (both wet writers), I think it's gorgeous -- a bright, refreshing blue with lots of subtle shading. Dries quickly, too. It and Noodler's Black have become my workhorses.

blue-black is common, but i have had my share of violets, greens and browns. i even found a perfect turqouise, made me wish i could make ink to match that!

I work as a pharmacy technician and we've been seeing a lot more prescriptions (particularly from hospital emergency rooms) requiring doctors' signatures to be in blue ink, to ensure it's an original scrip.