I recently purchased some vintage Waterman Brown ink, hoping it would be like Havana Brown. The two inks are decidedly different. The Vintage brown is closer to black, more of an olive or sepia(greenish undertone), while the Havana Brown has a reddish undertone. To me the Havana Brown is a truer brown while the Vintage Brown is more of a Gray.



Another photo:

Interesting. To me, the vintage looks rather like Parker Penman Mocha. What do others think?

I prefer the modern hue to that of the vintage in this instance.

Thanks for posting.

Chris

I have heard (and possibly seen) that Waterman Havana will oxidize green if given the chance. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the vintage ink was originally the same color as the new ink, but had shifted to a greener hue over the years.

It's only one possibility, and I'm not willing to claim it is probable, just a hypothesis.

The bottles are labeled differently. The vintage one says Encre Marron. I think the Havana one would say Encre Marron Havana or something like that...

Added another picture in original post.

I'm a big fan of the Havana. I can't imagine keeping any of it long enough for oxidation to occur. My favorite characteristic is that it shades differently depending on the nib. The vintage does have a bit more of the "professional" business feel, but does not seem to pop at all.

Thanks for the post!!!

Interesting, but I'm sticking to the havana!

I had a bottle of Havana from before they took out the phenol. It started to separate into constituent colors and I shook it to mix it up again. Once it was mixed, it looked an awful lot like your vintage Waterman Brown. I have a new bottle and it is decidedly different in color, more red, less gray.

Is it the phenol that I'm smelling?

Well, since I'm a bit puzzled with the Waterman Havana ink, I'll share my thoughts here...

I got a vintage bottle of Havana ink. I expected chocolate, but got olives instead.

artaddict, since I needed a bit more comparison to my bottle, I took the liberty of color correcting your scans, and I will post them here. My ink is like yours, green gray, instead of chocolate brown. There is a Phenol in my bottle too, and if there is a possibility of the ink oxidizing, I think mine just did that

On my box, it says Encre Havane

Check my thread about this, it has a pic of the box and the bottle:
http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...mp;#entry483757

But, I think I'm gonna use mine...

cheers,
Nenad

I like both colors, but I prefer the modern Havana Brown.

I would have to agree that the vintage brown looks almost like Penman Mocha. Havana was my standard ink until the Penman came out. I liked the Mocha and used it exclusively in my Duofold with no problems at all. I wish I could still get it.

After they discontinued the Mocha I went back to Havana and still use it every day. I do think, however, that when they removed the phenol from the ink the colour, or something, changed. I don't know whether it was the removal of the phenol or something else, or a combination of factors, but it seems the current Havana has a slight tendency toward red that the old Havana didn't. Just my observations.

And yes, it's the phenol you are smelling. Don't snort too much of it because they took it out due to its carcinogenic properties.


Mescoff
l

Actually I color edited my photos(not scans) to show the actual hues & values of the inks and not the paper.

oops, sorry, I did that for my reference only, and I thought someone else might find different pics valuable...

I am a bit anal about color on monitors. I am in DTP industry for a while, and I can tell you that device (monitor, scanner, printer) calibration is the most critical thing for good color reproduction.

anyways, sorry if I offended you,


cheers,
Nenad

It's true I haven't calibrated my monitor...

I just couldn't get the ink color right as well as the paper - the lighting was mixed when I took the photos... I dunno.

On the second (i.e. edited) scan, the vintage brown looks very similar to the JH Lie de Thé - possibly just a wee bit darker. I prefer the vintage colour. I had been considering getting a bottle of Havana Brown, but am tempted now just to put my Lie de Thé in a smoother, wetter pen.



I thought that myself: though I have never owned these inks, what I was seeing on scans (a noticeably reddish brown) just didn't match up to some of the descriptions that I had (which described a benchmark dark brown - no mention of heavy red tones). That's why I started a thread on this in the Inky Thoughts section, to see if it was just my impression before deciding whether to buy.