Can anybody share their exeprience of using Visconti, Aurora, Private Reserve and Noodlers in vintage pens, particularly P51's, Snorkels including PFM's and CS 58's. I've been playing it safe up to now with Waterman and Diamine but am tempted to be more adventurous!

Vintage pens can handle any ink you decide to throw at them. I only own vintage pens, and most of the inks I use are Noodler's.

Both my open nibbed Snorkel Admiral and my Triumph nibbed Sentinel work fine with Noodler's Heart of Darkness and Legal Lapis (respectively). My "51" Special is usually loaded with Noodler's La Coeleur Royale.

"51"s are particularly good at handling even the most "potent" inks. Vintage pens (the sacked ones) don't have any metal parts (apart from the nib, but gold doesn't rust/corrode) that are exposed to the ink.

Just additional info from the vintage pen repair side of things...
Even "potent" inks that are in the pH neutral range are safer than any of the vintage acid inks. If the ink is akin to battery acid - it can and will pit even a significant proportion of vintage gold alloys (ever see a 10K gold Moore super flex nib that was badly pitted? Parker victory WW II production gold alloy? Acids did that...nothing else....just inks with a pH of 1 to 2 like those still made in central Europe to this day (as well as some water resistant inks in the UK).

If it must be conventional and for some reason "bulletproof" is too durable or too something, there is the option of Borealis Black. If you had a time machine for testing the only difference to the best black of 1950 would be the fact that Borealis Black is pH neutral and the 1950 ink was alkaline.

Hope this helps.

I've used Aurora, PR and Noodlers in Esterbrooks, P51 Aerometric, Waterman's, Sheaffers (no snorkels), and whatever else I have. Never had any issues.

Go for it!

I was wondering the same thing, since I just unearthed two of my father-in-law's 1940s era Schaeffer Valiant pens. They vacuum fill and was wondering if Noodler's Eel series--a lubricating-type ink--would be better than, say, Noodler's Baystate series or those from other manufacturers with a neutral pH.

BTW Parker 51s do have a metal breather tube

And that breather tube is made of silver, which is prone to corrosion. So, beware...

Nathan, what Central European country are you referring to?