Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two old Skrip blue-blacks I found this week at an antiques mall earlier this week. (Click here to see the original post)

P.S. In real life, this little sampler is only about 8 cm (3.15 in.) wide.

P.P.S. Paper is Southworth 24lb 100% cotton Resume Paper in white.

Close up of shading (black-top bottle; Binderized Mabie Todd Swan):

Close-up of the differences between the two bottles:

-Bottle #1 is darker and gloomier.
-Bottle #2 is a little more green and brighter.

(The letters are written with a steel dip pen)

The one (black-top bottle) I have in my Swan right now is remarkably well-behaved. It seems I can leave the cap off the pen for longer periods of time without having the tip of the nib dry up. I also like how the two B-Bs aren't too dark at all. The shading is good and the hairlines are excellent.

-Hana

P.S. This is exactly the sort of complexity I expect from a B-B. It's not boring at all-- I like it very much already!

The older bottle has dried out some -- the paperboard cap liner will allow slow evaporation over the years.

The newer bottle looks exactly like my brand new Slovenian Skrip Blue-black, and I presume the older one should be nearly identical.

I had to add water to mine (at least 40 years old, maybe older, price sticker is 29 cents!). It had crud on the bottom that re-dissolved when I added about an equal volume of water.

Peter

The darker one (black-top bottle) is the relatively newer one (according to Kissing), which was never opened and filled to the top. There was no build-up for either of the blue-blacks.

-Hana

Very nice colors! Like that oldstyle blue-black. (Your handwriting also helps a lot, of course. )

Hmm. I'd have guessed the gold cap to be the newer one, as all the old bottles I have have black caps, including the ones in red and black boxes (the new style box -- the old ones are yellow, black, and blue with a stripe of tine ink color).

The Slovenian ink I have looks like the one in the gold top bottle.

Peter

Hi, nice writing (!), nice colours and a nice find...

I used to fill up my pens only with Sheaffer blue black (it seems a long time ago now ) I bought my bottles in a small store in The Netherlands, where they might as well had been standing for decennia. However, I'm not that old (nearly 30) and I definitely have used both bottles! I don't know if that says anything about the age of the ink, though. Like I was saying before: this shop might as well have had the bottles in stock for a long time.

I agree with Peter that the gold one seems the newest one. I remember buying blackheaded bottles at first. Then came the gold ones. Here again: I don't know if that says anything...

Edit: I did a small Google search, but until now I didn't find out which bottle is older... In my search I came across an online seller (a Dutch auction site) that still has the old Skrip blue-black (4 bottles) and blue (2 bottles). I'm talking about unopened bottles; the gold-topped ones. I already sent the seller an email to order some. If anyone else is interested, please PM me!

I love this color. I wish I could find a contemporary Blue Black that looks like this. How does Slovenian Sheaffer Skrip Blue Black compare to these?

It's the lighter one, and is a bit less water resistant at well. Not bad ink though for the price.

Peter

What beautiful penmanship you have! I am brand new here. I am a perfumer and found this site through another perfumer friend. My father used Schaeffer's blue-black ink all his life I think. What I remember since my childhood in the 1950's is the smell of that ink. It would be the discontinued version. Can you tell me if the smell is of castoreum, Umenohana? I ask this because the first time I smelled castoreum, an important perfumer's tincture, the smell of my father's ink immediately came back to me. But I haven't smelled Schaeffer's in 40 years ...at least. Did it have a distinctive and pleasant scent?

Not to hijack the thread, but mykstor, please read this thread.

I think those are relatively new bottles of Skrip, at least from the last 10 years. Although I first thought the color difference was due to evaporation, there really shouldn't be much evaporation. I'd expect the color differences to be just different batches made years apart.