Monteverde Inks With Rotten Egg Smell

[TSherbs]

 

That's my initial reaction as well, but then I remember a very informative post written by a GM from Herbin in 2012 when Herbin had a recurring problem with their inks (which is now ancient history). The Monteverde problem is of course different inks and none of the information in this post necessarily applies. But still informative, and a reminder that intelligent experienced people are still subject to mistakes. As much as I like reading about inks, this might actually be my favorite Inky Thought:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/213803-update-on-j-herbin-ink-problems/

Excellent info! Wonder what the case is with Monteverde. They make great colors!

[katerchen]

Excellent info! Wonder what the case is with Monteverde. They make great colors!

 

That was an awesome and brutally honest letter. Most companies would have posted some marketing bull**** , deflecting the blame to anyone but themselves.

 

-k

[bayindirh]

I have a bottle of Olivine in my current rotation. It's new, only used clean syringes to get ink but it's surface is cloudy/dusty. It writes pretty well and that dusty layer is not slimy also, there's no odour of any kind. Is something wrong with my bottle, or it's ink as usual.

[TSherbs]

 

That was an awesome and brutally honest letter. Most companies would have posted some marketing bull**** , deflecting the blame to anyone but themselves.

 

-k

word

[doublechocolate]

I just discovered that my only Monteverde ink bottle (Horizon Blue) has a very strong odour. It's purchased from a legit retail store in Dec. 2018 and has been sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust since it arrived.

 

I haven't email Monteverde yet as I don't know if Monteverde would send a free replacement to the north outside US.

[ScarletWoodland]

I just discovered that my only Monteverde ink bottle (Horizon Blue) has a very strong odour. It's purchased from a legit retail store in Dec. 2018 and has been sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust since it arrived.

 

I haven't email Monteverde yet as I don't know if Monteverde would send a free replacement to the north outside US.

They've sent mine to England without batting an eyelid so I'm sure it won't be a problem.

[kestrel]

I just discovered that my only Monteverde ink bottle (Horizon Blue) has a very strong odour. It's purchased from a legit retail store in Dec. 2018 and has been sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust since it arrived.

 

I haven't email Monteverde yet as I don't know if Monteverde would send a free replacement to the north outside US.

I had the same situation. I couldn't even remember where the bottle came from but when I opened it there was a strong smell of hydrogen sulfide. My replacement bottle shipped yesterday and the only question I was asked was for a valid address for shipping. Customer service has been first rate since they came out of lockdown.

[doublechocolate]

They've sent mine to England without batting an eyelid so I'm sure it won't be a problem.

 

I had the same situation. I couldn't even remember where the bottle came from but when I opened it there was a strong smell of hydrogen sulfide. My replacement bottle shipped yesterday and the only question I was asked was for a valid address for shipping. Customer service has been first rate since they came out of lockdown.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. Great to hear that Monteverde provides such exceptional customer service.

[dan in montreal]

 

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. Great to hear that Monteverde provides such exceptional customer service.

 

I experienced this issue with the same ink (a bottle of Horizon Blue which could have been labeled Fart in a Bottle) and they sent me a replacement immediately.

The best you can hope for from a company is that they acknowledge the problem should there be one and find a remedy for the customer. Like Herbin a few years ago, Monteverde has done just that. I can't speak to their customer service as far as pens are concerned as I don't own any, but they've been good with respect to their inks.

[TSherbs]

I wonder what they changed in the manufacturing process (assuming that subsequent bottles do not have the same issues). We know what JHerbin did (because of the notice posted above). I'm just curious.

[dan in montreal]

I wonder what they changed in the manufacturing process (assuming that subsequent bottles do not have the same issues). We know what JHerbin did (because of the notice posted above). I'm just curious.

If we are to believe the measures taken by Yafa quoted in the first post of this thread, I expect they have. They can't have been happy losing money by replacing bottles and paying for shipping...For what it's worth, the replacement I got is OK and they've changed the cap design (although I have no idea if this has anything to do with anything).

[TSherbs]

So, I surmise that these inks were made in old machines? Less than ideal circumstances, left open too long, and not stored well (judging from the list of changes in the OP). So, who messed all that up? And were other inks coming from the same machines having similar problems? Again, this is a major _-up for an ink company. Someone get fired? Who's got the skinny on this?

Edited June 20, 2020 by TSherbs

[ScarletWoodland]

So, I surmise that these inks were made in old machines? Less than ideal circumstances, left open too long, and not stored well (judging from the list of changes in the OP). So, who messed all that up? And were other inks coming from the same machines having similar problems? Again, this is a major _-up for an ink company. Someone get fired? Who's got the skinny on this?

What I took from it was that they still didn't actually know what had caused it, so they were just improving everything

[Martolod]

Worked for a shop that sold inks, MV were really nice about dealing with spoiled inks, but yeah i went a couple years before buying another MV ink because my California Teal smelled like death. But I liked the color so much I had to take my chances again, and snagged another bottle from my shop.... smells fine and dandy! They definitely cleaned up so your bottle is probably older, probably produced around 2018, early 2019.

[ssataline]

I am so glad I found this post. I just bought a 90 ml bottle of Capri Blue from eBay. Good Lord, it is the worst smelling something -- and that includes months of being tear gassed last year in Hong Kong.

I notified the company at the email address Rachel provided and await word.

I'm bummed because I'm away from home and can't check the many Monteverde inks I bought this year.

 

Thank you so much.

 

 

This was posted recently on the Goulet Nation Facebook group by Rachel Goulet:

 

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by ssata

[inkstainedruth]

There was a recent thread from someone who was having trouble with their bottle of IIRC Horizon Blue. I hadn't remembered this thread or I would have sent the person to here.

But the comment someone made about "How do you not know?" Easy. You forget steps.

My husband did a lot of homebrewing in the past, and was also really good at diagnosing other people's problems when they'd have a batch go bad (the advantage of making beer over wine is that you can tell right off when something is bad before ingesting enough to make yourself sick). And 99% of the time they'd say "But I cleaned my kitchen first!" and he'd say "Yes, but did you STERILIZE it?" And walk them completely through what they did, step by step -- and invariably they would have forgotten to sterilize the siphon hosing or the paddle used to stir the wort, or the air trap thingies you put on the bottles that you put water in but which let out any off gassing so the bottles don't explode -- I forget offhand what they're called). Not sure if the stuff my husband used, B-Brite, would be safer for pens than using something like bleach, because I wasn't into pens back then (he used B-Brite because it was easier to rinse off than bleach; and while you can use a TINY bit of bleach you don't really want to ingest large amounts of it).

He got dinged by a health inspector in Indiana a few years ago with the sideline business because he didn't have the strips to check how much bleach was in the sanitation rinse sink; OTOH, he got some slack when the inspector found out that he and his niece and the guy who drove the equipment truck and one or two other people spent two days scrubbing down everything in the booth before I got on site -- it was the snack bar building at a 4H fairground, and in the past they allowed the site to self-police... (I suspect THAT changed... a LOT).

The ONE time it wasn't something that the person forgot to sterilize? Turned out the guy had really bad tasting tap water....

So yeah. If you forget to sterilize some piece of equipment you can have the same thing happen with an ink batch, and end up with SITB.... (I remember FPN member Pharmacist, who was the first person playing around with making IG inks in colors other than blue black -- he had a batch go bad because his cleaning lady refilled a bottle of what was supposed to be distilled water from the tap and he didn't know it until the batch went bad on him....)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for typos

Edited September 22, 2020 by inkstainedruth

[Carrau]

I have about nine of their inks, mostly in the smaller bottles, and apart from one bottle that was bad two years ago (replaced by the company), I've never found another of them to go bad. One of my larger bottles, Sapphire blue, I have open frequently as it’s an EDC ink for me. Apart from wiping the top of the bottle and the cap before replacing it, I don’t do anything special in handling their ink bottles.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Herrjaeger

[sansenri]

I have one bottle of Monteverde Horizon blue. I like the colour very much.

 

Since I started reading about these problems with Monteverde inks I have been keeping this ink checked.

The last time I used it it was end of July (I know since I always keep a record of what ink goes in which pen when I fill).

I recall smelling it and the ink was Ok.

Today I went to refill a pen with it and it smelled bad! rotten eggs, that probably describes it (sulphur smell).

I was disappointed, the bottle is practically new, used a couple of times.

 

It is clear that these inks are suffering either from contamination at the origin, or insufficient preservative, or possibly both.

I bought this at the end of 2019 from Amazon.

Not sure whether I could still claim for a refund but cannot really be bothered, so I have decided to test adding some preservative.

Unfortunately I don't have any Phenol at home, however I do have a bottle of disinfectant which is a 50% solution in distilled water of benzalkonium chloride.

Benzalkonium is a typical preservative which is used in the pharma industry.

Many products contain it, for example several types of eye drops contain benzalkonium to protect the eye drops from contamination (which is very important as if you instill contaminated eye drops in your eyes you can cause serious eye infection problems...).

So I've made a quick empiric test, put some ink in the bottom of a glass jar, added some drops of benzalkonium to it, tested smell, colour and writing characteristics.

Colour does not seem to change, writing characteristics do not seem to change, the bad odour is killed off!

So, since probable alternative would be to throw away the whole bottle, without further testing I have added a couple of ml of benzalkonim to my Horizon bottle content...mixed, left a while to rest (half an hour), smelled again. Quite a lot of the smell has gone, there is some odour of the benzalkonium.

I have filled a cheap test pen (a Jinhao) and so far so good. Obviously I will keep this monitored in the next days, and probably will not use this ink in my good pens just to be on the safe side (both from the contamination or possible effects of the benzalkonium).

A couple of good alternatives Diamine Blue Velvet, Leonardo Officina blue, both a very similar shade of blue.

 

 

[TSherbs]

great info, sansenri.

[sansenri]

Thanks, let's see how it goes.

The ink in the jinhao is still ok, I've used it in the last 3 days and no problems.

I've also reopened the bottle of Horizon to smell it, not the loveliest smell, but benzalkonium does have an own strong odour.

You may recognize it as it's often contained also in toothpastes and particularly in mouth washes.

The ink coming from the pen has no odour as it goes on paper.