In researching Inkograph, I came across an article that suggests inks to use and not use in your Inkograph. Wonder why blue-black is singled out to avoid.

Just a guess, but I think blue-blacks of the time were mainly iron gall (read: corrosive) inks. Iron gall inks and fountain pens generally do not mix well over extended periods.

Interesting article, by the way. I love this kind of stuff...!

The comments that people wrote in are interesting. Even more interesting is that a religious periodical seems to be producing and marketing their own fountain pen...

And the subscription is $1.00 per year

Good stuff. Thanks.

I would guess it was a reference to iron-gall inks as well.



They were not producing their own fountain pens - Inkograph was a major manufacturer at the time. They were offering Inkograph pens as a free give-away for anyone that brought in 3 new subscriptions. Pen give-aways were not that uncommon back in those days, and I have seen other magazines that used them as a part of a new-subscription deal.

John

I read, in several manufacturer's essays on ink, that blue-black was commonly made by mixing the left-overs from a run of blue ink and a run of black ink. So it was a cheap ink and not considered to be reliable because there was no quality control. I do not know when blue-black became a common ink, made with the same quality control as any other ink. Perhaps that has something to do with why the Ink-O-Graph was not used with such ink. By the way, what kind of pen was the Ink-O-Graph? A fountain pen? Or a stylus, somewhat similar to the Rapid-O-Graph? Or something else entirely? Anyone know?

Randal

Inkograph produced mostly stylographic fountain pens, but did offer pens with nibs and mechanical pencils (including Mickey Mouse licensed pens and pencils). Their stylographic pens were not intended to be technical pens, as Rapidograph was, the metal writing tip was rounded, rather than squared off, making for a very smooth writing pen.

I find this comment interesting as common parlance of the day would have blue-black ink to be ink that wrote blue and dried black, not some bluish-black or blackish-blue combination.

The object was to create permanence, this being afforded by the oxidizing of the iron particulate matter.

In any event, traditional iron gall inks were acidic. Historically, one of the problems that beset stylo makers was finding a way to contain the needle assembly so as to protect it from direct contact with ink. To this day, it's unusual to find early stylos with intact needles, most of them having corroded away.

Nearly all of my Inkographs (around) 50-60) were produced after 1921 and have hard white gold drop-weight needles, none of which were corroded. Perhaps hard white gold wire is how Inkograph solved the problem which caused the warning in the article; I am familiar with which metal was used in early, spring needles.