Why Was Vintage Waterman Ink Never As Popular As Quink Or Skrip

[eharriett]

Im in the market for a bottle of vintage Waterman Blue Black, the old 40s-50s stuff with the iron gall in it.

 

It is not impossible to find. Please dont take this post as me saying I cant find it, because i see it on eBay with some searching.

 

But ..... I see a whole lot more Parker ink and Sheaffer ink for sale. Now, back then, Waterman was still a major player, if not as big as Parker, they were by no means a little guy. And there was a period before the early 30s where they were either number one or close to it.

 

But in pens, not in ink. Why do you think vintage Waterman ink is no much rarer than Quink and Skrip? Its good stuff, to be sure. Im unaware of ever seeing bad Waterman ink outside of the comment not my shade of ..... This puzzles me, as you would think the ink sales would follow the pen sales.

 

Im on a real authentic vintage blue black kick right now, using vintage Parker and Sheaffer BB in a number of pens for a bunch of things and it occurs to me I had no Waterman with the touch of iron gall in it. Im trying to find just that right bottle of it for a reasonable price when I realized how little of it can be found relative to the other big two.

[JonSzanto]

Maybe the Waterman inks were so good they pretty much got all used up. That would be at least one explanation.

[Addertooth]

Interesting, I find myself at the opposite end of the spectrum. I like outlandish colors which make it easy for me to tell writing from my different pens apart.

My work inks are Montblanc Irish Green and Faber Castell Carbon Black. But my flex nib colors are normally vibrant.

[pajaro]

Oh Jeez. I am finding myself being led into a search for old Waterman blue black. This might be fun. Thanks eharriett for the idea.

[JonSzanto]

[eharriett]

Well heck, JonSzanto! You just gave me a checklist to complete I'm missing about 3 of those. Two I have never seen before.

 

Still wondering why they aren't as prevalent as Quink or Skrip though

 

Curious, have you ever noticed a difference between your V-Mail black and non-V-mail in the same basic label? I don't. As far as I could tell, they just changed the label for WWII and kept the product the same.

 

As I type this, you make me wonder about those two colors I am missing. And I did not even know I was missing them. Thanks for that.

[JonSzanto]

Curious, have you ever noticed a difference between your V-Mail black and non-V-mail in the same basic label? I don't. As far as I could tell, they just changed the label for WWII and kept the product the same.

 

As I type this, you make me wonder about those two colors I am missing. And I did not even know I was missing them. Thanks for that.

 

Sorry I've added to your chase! I should have noted: this is an image I recently saw and linked to, it is not my personal collection. I actually don't own any vintage Waterman inks. Vintage Sheaffer, yes, but not Waterman.

[eharriett]

 

Sorry I've added to your chase! I should have noted: this is an image I recently saw and linked to, it is not my personal collection. I actually don't own any vintage Waterman inks. Vintage Sheaffer, yes, but not Waterman.

 

 

Ha!! You got me!

[pajaro]

Well, I found this. https://vod.ebay.com/vod/FetchOrderDetails?sspagename=STRK%3AMESO%3AVPS&itemid=401810415908&transid=793289767027

 

It looked old enough. Maybe not.

Edited July 16, 2019 by pajaro

[eharriett]

Well, I found this. https://vod.ebay.com/vod/FetchOrderDetails?sspagename=STRK%3AMESO%3AVPS&itemid=401810415908&transid=793289767027

 

It looked old enough. Maybe not.

Link didn't work.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Oh, now, that's just not fair.

[inkstainedruth]

I don't remember if I've ever seen vintage Waterman much. Quink? Sure. Skrip? Sometimes. Occasionally I've run across empty or mostly empty bottles of Carter's ink. But I think I can count on one hand the number I've times I've seen vintage Waterman bottles.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Sailor Kenshin]

I actually have three of them. The first was Carnation, bought at a yard sale for a buck, never opened. The other two are South Seas and Black, both from fleabay, for considerably more.

[eharriett]

I don't remember if I've ever seen vintage Waterman much. Quink? Sure. Skrip? Sometimes. Occasionally I've run across empty or mostly empty bottles of Carter's ink. But I think I can count on one hand the number I've times I've seen vintage Waterman bottles.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Yeah! I've run across Carters and Sanfords more than Waterman! It's easier to get more of that corrosive Parker 51 ink than it is to get a bottle of 50's Waterman black.

[Parker51]

I have a few of the vintage waterman bottles. They are quite attractive,

The reason you see so much Parker Quink is Parker pushed it on their retailers.

They had a big tie in promotion with Disney for the opening of Dumbo and they flooded the market with it. Then WW 2 came along and Pen production couldn't keep up with demand, but Parker wanted to keep their name in the market so they again sent their retailers more Quink than they wanted, this time as a requirement to get some of the limited available pens to sell. And so not just boxes, but entire crates of Quink from that period survive to this day.

This information came from Parker Company news letters.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Parker51

[eharriett]

Ahhhh! An answer!

 

I guess that’s one way of making sure you have a lot of product out there: force it upon your distributors. I would assume Sheaffer did the same thing, then.

 

Thanks for the answer.

[Left FPN]

When trolling the bay, I see many early Waterman ink bottles...mostly empty though.

[pajaro]

I collected pens for a long time before I ever saw Quink in a store. What I saw everwhere was Shaeffer's. Everywhere. I never heard of Waterman until about 2008. Fahrney's did push Montblanc and Pelikan inks on me in 1983.

 

Quink who? Waterman who?

 

I only bothered collecting Parker 51 before this place.

[eharriett]

Interestingly, I went to Fahrneys for the first time two months ago and tried their own house brand of ink (did not like). They did have the entire Waterman line there. The boxes look very .... distinguished, compared with the inks of the past.

[inkstainedruth]

It's easier to get more of that corrosive Parker 51 ink than it is to get a bottle of 50's Waterman black.

 

You know, I think you may be right. I've seen Superchrome bottles for sale a couple of times at antiques stores. I think that the first time I saw a bottle of Waterman in an antiques store was last month at a place outside Charlottesville, VA -- it was $10 US and IIRC it was mostly empty. I suspect it was more for bottle collectors than for pen people.

@ Parker51 -- The bit about Parker requiring retailers overstock on Quink is interesting. A while back I was in an antiques store northeast of me, where I'd bought vintage (1940s era) Quink a few times. One time, the woman said she had an entire case of vintage Quink Blue Black. Brought out the (sealed) box and EVERY one of the 12 bottles had completely evaporated to oblivion. She apparently bought the box at an estate sale or barn sale, and was QUITE unhappy that all the bottles were empty. I think that's why she cut me a deal on the bottles that DID have ink in them. And has cut me even bigger deals on later visits there.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth