Vintage Sheaffer Ink

[UDog]

I found a dried-up bottle of Sheaffer Blue-Black ink in a basement closet.

It had a red label with the word "Sheaffer" on it, no color name. The box

for this ink was red too.

 

The word "Skrip" was nowhere to be found. Is this a different Sheaffer ink?

It might be 25 years or older.

 

I rehydrated some of the sludge and it is a nice color, plus it's waterproof!

Is that possible?

 

Thanks for any information on this Mystery Ink.

[mrcharlie]

That era of packaging started sometime in the 1980s or early 1990s, but I don't have any from that era, and I don't know the exact year it started.

 

Sheaffer was a division of conglomerate Textron, and was then combined with Eaton into a single division of Textron, but in 1987 Sheaffer Eaton was sold off to Gefinor, an investment bank according to the source material. Eventually Sheaffer was sold in 1997 to the US division of BIC. I think the packaging you have correlates to the Gefinor ownership period, and perhaps the first period of BIC (until ink production was moved to Slovenia), but that is speculation on my part. That packaging may have predated the sale to Gefinor.

 

FWIW, when Textron first purchased Sheaffer they kept the yellow boxes, but they brand name changed from Sheaffer's to Sheaffer, and eventually they changed the box and bottle label to feature the large word "ink". They also changed the colors available somewhat, Blue and Royal Blue were replaced with the current color of "blue", Black (aka "Washable Black") was dropped (Jet Black was retained). There may have been other changes at that time; the ones I listed there are the ones I know about. I don't know what year that happened, but it was when the boxes were still yellow, and the bottle/box labels featured the word "ink".

 

The packaging you have came after that. The only thing I'm not sure of is the year and the parent company at that time, Textron or Gefinor.

 

The information about when Sheaffer was sold to various owners is from the Sheaffer Targa website.

 

The rehydrated stuff working well is possible. I rehydrated some old Washable Emerald Green and it works as well as the bottles I bought that were still liquid.

Edited December 18, 2012 by mrcharlie

[UDog]

mrcharlie...Thanks for the wealth of information. I like the color of

the rehydrated ink. I probably have the dilution wrong, but that's okay.

 

And it's waterproof!

[Lapi0]

Hello there,

some few days ago I found an old Sheaffer ink bottle like yours. I was wondering about same thing. Where is Skrip gone?

In mine there is inscribed on package: Made in USA, Sheaffer INC, 301 Avenue H, Fort Madison

Thanks for the explanation.

[swanjun]

I'm actually collecting the bottles of this type because they correspond with the cartridge packaging I fondly remember from my high school days writing with a Sheaffer school pen (this would've been 1990-1992).

 

I'm not sure about this, but I think that this is the period where inks like Burgundy, Lavender, Grey, and King's Gold were first introduced. At least, I've never seen them with any of the yellow box/bottle packaging.

[whych]

Haven't seen an old style bottle of Sheaffer Skrip since the 70's, but have cartridges with the red package style.

Most inks of the period were permanent and the only washable inks around were Parker Royal blue and a Sheaffer blue.

The bottles also made a point of saying it was washable. A novelty at the time.

By today's standards, I should imagine the old washable inks would have been the equivalent of some of today's more permanent inks. They washed out, but still left a mark. And when I say washed, I mean a proper wash, Never just disappeared with a bit of soapy water.

I only hve blue and brown in the modern sheaffer bottles and the brown is pretty water resistant, so I imagine the blue is the only really non permanent one in the current range.

 

The colour should be pretty close to the current blue black, so just add water till the colour looks about right. I did this with an old bottle of Parker Brown I have and it's fine.

Just cut a new piece of inner for the cap to seal it properly. If I remember, the old metal caps were prone to rust and the seal wasn't that good. Also, the metal sticks better to the glass than the plastic caps, so make sure the threads are clean before closing the top or you have a job unscrewing the cap.