Giovanni Gnocchi Ink

[uceroy]

It is probably not a coincidence that also the Gnocchi is pink and the label says it will change to black, both are iron gall.

The irony that I didn't notice that.. (sorry, bad pun). Will post samples as soon as bottles have arrived. Might dig out my dip pens, too.

Thank you very much for translating and the additional information

Edited November 12, 2018 by uceroy

[sansenri]

The Treccani Enciclopedia (possibly the most important Italian Enciclopedia) in its issue dated 1933 describes Inchiostro copiativo as follows:

"Writing inks. - Writing inks, according to their composition and their use, can be classified in: iron-Gall based inks: stationary and copying; camp-based inks: stationary and copying; colored inks: stationary and copying; indelible inks; drawing inks; vanishing inks.

Stationary (or fixed) inks and copying inks are manufactured with the same raw materials: only the latter are more concentrated and added with glycerine, sugar, etc., to increase their copying strength.

Copying ink is more concentrated and contains about 3% of glycerine or sugar. A good formula is as follows: 40 g. of tannin; 10 g. of gallic acid; 35 g. of ferrous sulphate; 3.3 g. of sulfuric acid conc. 30 g. of sugar; 1 g. of phenic acid; 1000 g. of water; 0.4-0.7 g. of aniline color."

 

It is difficult to understand use of copying ink since how it was used is not described. It would seem that once written you could put a very light sheet of paper over the writing to pick up ink (which would stay wet due to glycerine), the light paper, used as a sort of tracing paper was then put in a press over a white sheet to get another copy of the original...

[uceroy]

Thank you for the information! I looked up the German term, and wikipedia actually has a good description (sadly only in German)

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopierpresse

 

Apparently from 1862 in Germany you had to make copies of bussiness letters. To reduce the time of rewriting all those letters, they wrote one with copying ink. This letter was then put in a press with other sheets ('wrapping tissue') below it, a sheet of wax paper on top. The sheets were either slightly moistured or a moist sheet of cotton was added. Pressed, usually for a night, was enough for roughly 3-4 copies. There were special inks for up to 20 copies, too, apparently.

 

Very interesting to learn, I never knew!

Edited November 13, 2018 by uceroy

[Goldberg]

Copying ink is more concentrated and contains about 3% of glycerine or sugar. A good formula is as follows: 40 g. of tannin; 10 g. of gallic acid; 35 g. of ferrous sulphate; 3.3 g. of sulfuric acid conc. 30 g. of sugar; 1 g. of phenic acid; 1000 g. of water; 0.4-0.7 g. of aniline color."

 

It is difficult to understand use of copying ink since how it was used is not described. It would seem that once written you could put a very light sheet of paper over the writing to pick up ink (which would stay wet due to glycerine), the light paper, used as a sort of tracing paper was then put in a press over a white sheet to get another copy of the original...

Great info, thank you!

Will post samples as soon as bottles have arrived. Might dig out my dip pens, too.

Let's put it like that:

now that you have 250 mL of an ultra rare ink you have an excuse to buy a noodler's safety pen!

Edited November 13, 2018 by Goldberg

[uceroy]

Great info, thank you!

Let's put it like that:

now that you have 250 mL of an ultra rare ink you have an excuse to buy a noodler's safety pen!

My attempt at a 'no-spend November' is not going well 😂

 

Hmmm.. Since I doubt I will ever use up that much ink, I wouldn't mind sharing some (for cost-price, or trading perhaps) if anyone would be interested? I doubt shipping within the EU would be a problem, outside of that, not sure whether (old) inks are allowed or whether shipping wouldn't be too expensive 🤔

[sansenri]

Thank you for the information! I looked up the German term, and wikipedia actually has a good description (sadly only in German)

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopierpresse

 

Apparently from 1862 in Germany you had to make copies of bussiness letters. To reduce the time of rewriting all those letters, they wrote one with copying ink. This letter was then put in a press with other sheets ('wrapping tissue') below it, a sheet of wax paper on top. The sheets were either slightly moistured or a moist sheet of cotton was added. Pressed, usually for a night, was enough for roughly 3-4 copies. There were special inks for up to 20 copies, too, apparently.

 

Very interesting to learn, I never knew!

 

Thank you very interesting, yes.

Things have changed so much in time that some things are hard to imagine.

It would seem that this method was gradually superseeded by carbon copy paper

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_paper

which seems to have been invented by an Italian guy in early 1800...

 

[uceroy]

My bottles have arrived, and I had a few free minutes just now.. ☺

I cut away the wax, and as I tried to pull out the cork (which was very soft!) it snapped in half... And then I heard the noise of air being pulled inside the bottle... In short, the large 250mL bottle was definitely sealed and air-tight! Yay!

After getting the second half of that cork out, I decanted the ink into smaller bottles. No weird fungy smell whatsoever. If I had to say, it faintly smelled like a fine whiskey

 

I've attached a quick writing sample (please don't mind the handwriting and the horrible spelling.. I tend to skip letters when writing fast). I didn't fill a pen, but just let the last drops in the bottle drip on the paper, and dip a clean pen in there to write.

 

I've added Krishna's silent night sky and Noodler's Tchaikowsky for comparison, as these are the only purples I have.

One picture was taken with camera flash, the other two without.

 

I think this is general purple fountain pen ink, not iron gall or otherwise, but I'll wait for a few days to see if it will change on paper. Until then, enjoy the Gnocchi purple!

Edited November 16, 2018 by uceroy

[amberleadavis]

Take a picture of that page tomorrow and let's see if it darkens. I think you have some of what was over here was used in a Gestetner (see an OLD one below). The copies were not made with computers, but you would create a special stencil and the copies were called mimeographs.

 

Here was one of the machines when I was a kid.

 

 

We had a whole thread about what the color of the old mimeographs actually was. I'll try and find that thread so that you can post this picture. This is a great find. Thank you for sharing!

 

 

 

Here is an "antique".

 

 

https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/58b3b81fd0ce260f2cdfe2b0

 

This Gestetner Cyclostyle duplicating machine was invented and manufactured by David Gestetner. He claimed in 1922, once he had released several models, that if a Gestetner Durotype stencil was used together with his Cyclostyle machine, then 10,000 copies could be made from the one Durotype stencil, an amazing claim for office technology of that era.

David Gestetner (1854-1939), was born in Csoma, Hungary. He has been called the “founder of the worldwide office copying and duplicator industry.). He moved to London and in 1879 filed his first copying patent. In 1881 he patented the Cyclostyle stylus (or pen), which was used in conjunction with his Cyclograph device for copying text and images, He established the Gestetner Cyclograph Company in England at this time (1881) to protect his inventions and to produce his products; stencils, stylos (stylus or pen) and ink rollers. HIs inventions included nail-clipper and the ball-point pen (although the latter is more commonly associated with Laszlo Biro).

Gestetner’s patented Cyclograph duplicator was used with his Cyclostyle Stylus or pen to write or draw on special thin wax-coated stencil paper (originally used for kite making paper) in the following way;
1. The Cyclostyle stencil was placed on a lower, framed metal plate of the Cyclograph
2. An upper frame was clipped over the top
3. The Cyclostyle pen, with its tip being a small metal-spiked or toothed wheel, was used to write or draw on the stencil, punched small holes into the paper and removed the wax coating in those places
4. The upper frame and stencil was then removed and a piece of blank paper was placed onto the metal plate in the lower frame and the upper frame with stencil was replaced
5. A roller was given an even distribution of Cyclostyle ink and rolled by hand over the stencil in the frame. This forced the ink through the holes in the stencil to and made a copy of the stencil on the paper
6. The upper frame was raised, the printed paper removed and another blank sheet was put into place. The whole process was repeated until enough copies were made.

Gestetner’s invention developed further in 1894, with a stencil that could be placed on a screen on a revolving drum. The drum was manually rotated, the stencil then wrapped around another drum and was fed between cloth-covered rollers on which ink was evenly spread. Each revolution of the drum forced ink through the holes in the stencil and transferred the ink onto paper that had been fed between rollers and pressed against the drum. The process was repeated for each page. The paper was still fed and removed manually in this earlier invention but became more automatic in later models. In 1902 Gestetner duplicator model 6 was put onto the market. This model included the improvement of an automatic paper feed that synchronised with the rotation of the stencil.

The Gestetner machine was the first office printing machine. It was easily installed and it made exact copies of the sane document quickly, effectively and inexpensively. This changed the way offices operated, making information easily available to many more users. The machines were commonly used in small businesses, schools, churches, clubs and other organisations for the wide distribution of a wide variety of information in the form of worksheets, newsletters and more.

In 1906 the Gestetner Works were opened in Tottenham Hale, North London, and thousands of people were employed there up until the 1970’s. Due to the fast growing success of the Gestetner Duplicator machines many international branches for sales and service centres were established. David Gestetner was succeeded by his son Sigmund, followed by his grandson’s David and Jonathan.

Further advancement was made by using a manual typewriter with specifically designed stencils. The end product was a printed, typewritten copy similar to the print from newspapers and booklets. In the next few years there were further developments of this revolutionary invention.

 

The Gestetner Cyclostyle duplicator in our Collection is dated c.1922 - 1929 and it uses Gestetner Durotype stencils The 1922 British Industries Fair’s catalogue contained advertising for the Gestetner Rotary Cyclostyle “The World’s Premier Duplicator”, demonstrated at Stand K 86.” A Notice at the foot of the advertisement’s page boasts "Important - D Gestetner's latest invention, the "Durotype" Stencil, enables you to obtain 10,000 copies from one original if desired. It contains no wax of any description, is indestructible, can be stored indefinitely and printed from as required”

 

In 1929 the look of the Gestetner machines changed; American designer Raymond Loewy was invited by Gestetner to improve the look of his duplicators, resulting in a very streamlined appearance. Eventually, around 1960’s, offices replaced their Gestetner with small photocopying machines and printers.

Gestetner took over ownership of other office machine companies over time, including Nashua, Rex Rotary, Hanimex and Savin and eventually all came under the holding company name of NRG (Nashuatech, Rex Rotary and Gestetner). In 1996 Ricoh acquired the Gestetner Company, and it was renamed the NRG Group.

[amberleadavis]

OOO Yes, here is the thread searching for the color of mimeographs. I hope you post these pictures there too.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/316481-nostalgic-color-mimeograph/?hl=mimeograph

[uceroy]

New pictures in daylight, and a day later.

The new text is fresh, but the color of the rest has not changed overnight, so I felt confident in putting it into a very cheap pen with calligraphy nib.

 

On a sidenote... How do you best clean ink of your hands? 😅🤣 (Little inkcidence while filling the pen)

[ehemem]

For the hands, if plain old soap does not work, try rubbing alcohol...

[amberleadavis]

When you shampoo your hair most of it will wash off.

[uceroy]

When you shampoo your hair most of it will wash off.

This actually worked beautifully. Only a faint stain now, except around the knuckles. But that's just a reminder to self to start treating these pesky winter hands better.

Edited November 17, 2018 by uceroy

[amberleadavis]

Yes! I recommend using a good hand cream before inking - not the kind that leaves your hands greasy, but enough to hydrate.

[Goldberg]

The ink looks fantastic and not iron gall!

win-win

[bass1193]

So great to see how this turned out! Nice and vibrant, and I bet it would be luscious more saturated. I love experimenting with allowing inks to evaporate some.

[amberleadavis]

The ink looks fantastic and not iron gall!

win-win

 

 

I thought we read above that is an in IG ink. Am I mistaken?

[Goldberg]

I thought we read above that is an in IG ink. Am I mistaken?

It seems like it is not an IG inchiostro copiativo because it did not change color to a darker one.

 

Uceroy said that the label is apparently historically styled to look very old but in reality, it is a normal fountain pen ink.

 

Pretty confusing, if you ask me, but IG inks change color, right?

[amberleadavis]

Not necessarily. I have a whole bunch which don't change color until YEARS have gone by or until I tried to do chemical washes. It is still a wonderful find. Thank you for sharing and for clarifying.

[BiggieD]

Giovanni Gnochi ink was a fountain pen ink made or marketed by F Rubinatto from the mid 90s. The bottles were stylized to look like they were old. I had the 250ml cork sealed bottle with brown ink - it was fine and the cork/wax cap never caused me any problems. I had the bottle for over 10 years and used it with multiple high value fountain pens with no issues.

 

I threw the bottle out in 2006 while moving and have regretted it ever since. Where did you find these? I had all but given up hope of finding a replacement for the one I threw out.

 

If you search the forum for gnocchi youll see my original post from Feb 2018.

Edited November 22, 2018 by BiggieD