Wwii Fountain Ink Colors

[crtodd]

Great forum! My question is what color fountain inks were used during WWII? I have a German flag signed by GI's that brought it home. Some signatures are done in black ink and others in blue ink. Was there a blue fountain ink used during WWII? And if so would it have been used overseas during the war, probably toward the end of the war? Thanks

 

Chris

[jar]

Hi, welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell.

 

Sure, there were reds, blues, greens, blacks and various shades of those inks.

 

What color ink would "Q" have used?

[Ernst Bitterman]

Casting my mind back to adverts of the time, I know that most ink makers offered the eight basics: black, blue-black, blue, light blue/turquoise, green, brown, red, purple (Waterman's lineup is almost unchanged from the 1930s, apart from the names). The first three tended to be more popular colours (as today) but my wife has a paybook which belonged to... her grandfather, I think, which has a couple of entries in green

[ANM]

I have no hard data but I believe blue and blue-black were the most popular inks by far. However V-Mail required you to use black ink. V-Mail were letters written to overseas servicemen. This because letters were copied. Black ink copied better than any other color. The copies were sent and originals were destroyed. At least one reason for this was the precaution to avoid any chance of microdots being sent.

Edited February 21, 2013 by ANM

[WaskiSquirrel]

Noodler's Ink has a series of inks based off WW2 ink colors. They're interesting, but I haven't actually purchased any.

[Newjelan]

I have Noodlers North African Violets which is one of their WW2 inks. It's a stunning colour with great shading and looks "old world" to me

[Frits B]

Hi, welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell.

Sure, there were reds, blues, greens, blacks and various shades of those inks.

What color ink would "Q" have used?

If Q were German the ink he used would have been blue, for department heads. Since the establishment of Prussian bureaucracy, almost 300 years ago, there is a color code in German government. The top, cabinet and federal ministers, write in green. Parliamentary secretaries (junior ministers) use purple, other junior ministers write in red. Department heads must use blue ink, the tier just below them write in brown. Which leaves black for hoi polloi.

 

I suppose the same color codes can be used if they annotate electronic documents.

[jar]

Hi, welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell.

Sure, there were reds, blues, greens, blacks and various shades of those inks.

What color ink would "Q" have used?

If Q were German the ink he used would have been blue, for department heads. Since the establishment of Prussian bureaucracy, almost 300 years ago, there is a color code in German government. The top, cabinet and federal ministers, write in green. Parliamentary secretaries (junior ministers) use purple, other junior ministers write in red. Department heads must use blue ink, the tier just below them write in brown. Which leaves black for hoi polloi.

 

I suppose the same color codes can be used if they annotate electronic documents.

 

But he was British and they used green for the security services.

[Biber]

So are Noodler's V-mail inks (or some of them) actually based on original colors associated with V-mail or are they merely fancifully named colors playing on the WWII and V-mail theme? (Dark Matter, an actual reproduced ink closely associated with the V-mail series, not withstanding) The blurb from Noodler's leaves, to my mind, some doubt. And a quick search didn't turn up any images of original V-mail letters or ink bottles in anything other than black, blue or blue-black.

[Frits B]

Hi, welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell.

Sure, there were reds, blues, greens, blacks and various shades of those inks.

What color ink would "Q" have used?

If Q were German the ink he used would have been blue, for department heads. Since the establishment of Prussian bureaucracy, almost 300 years ago, there is a color code in German government. The top, cabinet and federal ministers, write in green. Parliamentary secretaries (junior ministers) use purple, other junior ministers write in red. Department heads must use blue ink, the tier just below them write in brown. Which leaves black for hoi polloi.

 

I suppose the same color codes can be used if they annotate electronic documents.

 

But he was British and they used green for the security services.

I only gave the example because the code apparently still exists. People moving up or down in the hierarchy get bottles of official ink in the proper color, I read last week.

[OldGriz]

So are Noodler's V-mail inks (or some of them) actually based on original colors associated with V-mail or are they merely fancifully named colors playing on the WWII and V-mail theme? (Dark Matter, an actual reproduced ink closely associated with the V-mail series, not withstanding) The blurb from Noodler's leaves, to my mind, some doubt. And a quick search didn't turn up any images of original V-mail letters or ink bottles in anything other than black, blue or blue-black.

 

They are not based on actual colors but fanciful names playing to the WWII era

Vmail had to be written with black ink and in fact a special black ink was formulated and included in Vmail kits to write with. I believe Sheaffer made the specific VMail black ink and it can sometimes still be found online.. it is a very very deep black ..... The written message was then micro photographed and placed on rolls for easy and less bulky transport to the soldiers overseas.... once in the theater of operations the messages were then copied to larger format and sent to the soldier in the field...

I have seen a couple of Vmails my father received when he was an aircraft gunner in the USN in the South Pacific....

I also have seen letters written home by him, mostly in pencil. I asked about that once and he said it was difficult getting ink so the majority of letters were written in pencil... also pencils were a lot less fragile than fountain pens... He said the few letters he wrote home in pen were done at USO establishments where they had tables set up for the troops to write back to their loved ones...

[Biber]

They are not based on actual colors but fanciful names playing to the WWII era

...

 

Thanks, I suspected as much. On a similar note, I still haven't found a good explanation of the background of Air Corps Blue Black.

[inkstainedruth]

Vmail had to be written with black ink and in fact a special black ink was formulated and included in Vmail kits to write with. I believe Sheaffer made the specific VMail black ink and it can sometimes still be found online.. it is a very very deep black ..... The written message was then micro photographed and placed on rolls for easy and less bulky transport to the soldiers overseas.... once in the theater of operations the messages were then copied to larger format and sent to the soldier in the field...

 

Is this the same sort of stuff as the Quink microfilm ink I've seen listings for on Ebay? I was wondering what that was.

Oh, and +1 for NAV -- I really need to put it in a pen again, because it's such a great color....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth