Mi6 And Green Ink.

[mallymal1]

How true.

 

My stash currently holds 29 greens...but not the Pelikan. Hmmmmm.

 

[Margana]

The tradition started in 1909. Waterman's, Parker, Pelikan, Carter's, Sanford, Diamine and J. Herbin were available at that time. It seems to have been a bright green ink which any of those manufacturers could have offered at that time.

[Rua Uilliam]

Green ink is my jam because it's my favourite colour. I try all different kinds.

 

Unfortunately, there's the "Green Ink Brigade" as well. People who hand-write letters to politicians or newspapers to express their 'unusual' views. According to the people who deal with these letters, the majority are writing in green ink...

[thatotherguy1]

I like green inks, at risk of being labelled as a nut... green is my favorite color.

However, I don't use a lot of green inks. I haven't tried many yet, but all of the few that I've tried so far were "nice, but I think I'll clean the pen and move on to the next sample" for me. I did like Noodler's Army Green quite a bit.

 

Did Ian Fleming ever specify what color ink M used in his official correspondence? I want to say it was red but I don't remember for sure... maybe I'm confusing it with Bond's color (or the fact that Commander Bond's telephone direct to M was red IIRC). Any serious Bondophiles able to shed some light on it?

Edited August 5, 2015 by thatotherguy1

[dompred]

I like green ink, especially the darker, musky-looking shades. It's a change, however subtle, from the black, blue-black spectrum. However I can't stand the bright, Irish greens. Hurts my eyes.

 

I also find myself liking dark greens and currently I'm looking for one. Do you have any favorite one?

[amberleadavis]

 

I also find myself liking dark greens and currently I'm looking for one. Do you have any favorite one?

 

If you haven't tried Moss Green by Faber Castell, you should give it a spin.

[Flaxmoore]

I like green inks, at risk of being labelled as a nut... green is my favorite color.

However, I don't use a lot of green inks. I haven't tried many yet, but all of the few that I've tried so far were "nice, but I think I'll clean the pen and move on to the next sample" for me. I did like Noodler's Army Green quite a bit.

 

Did Ian Fleming ever specify what color ink M used in his official correspondence? I want to say it was red but I don't remember for sure... maybe I'm confusing it with Bond's color (or the fact that Commander Bond's telephone direct to M was red IIRC). Any serious Bondophiles able to shed some light on it?

 

It's green. In Man With the Golden Gun, he writes "Action? M" next to the profile of a professional assassin and wonders if he signed Bond's death warrant.

[Cryptos]

Beware of people using green inks!

 

I leave you with this...

 

LINKAGE

 

[jmccarty3]

Beware of people using green inks!

 

I leave you with this...

 

LINKAGE

 

 

Hilarious! Don't neglect to read this.

[pawnraider]

Beware of people using green inks!

 

I leave you with this...

 

LINKAGE

 

Funny!

[tinta]

What an interesting thread.

I wish someone from the Navy or from MI6 would actually chime in about their use of green ink.

 

I am a blue/black & purple kind of guy, but do own a couple bottles of green: Sailor's Jentle Epinard & Diamine's Evergreen.

 

After at least a year's hiatus, Epinard has come out to play, in a 0.8 mm. stub.

A few days writing into my journal will tell if I would use Epinard for a personal letter that has been waiting to be composed.

Edited August 9, 2015 by tinta

[pawnraider]

What an interesting thread.

I wish someone from the Navy or from MI6 would actually chime in about their use of green ink.

 

As I said it's a tradition carried over from the Royal Navy and not to put too fine a point on it how would we know that the person is actually from MI6? He or she could give the real names and locations of the people behind the usernames. I would find that very convincing and somewhat unnerving. But then they probably have regulations against things like you've suggested. Just a thought.

[C-town]

I like green ink, especially the darker, musky-looking shades. It's a change, however subtle, from the black, blue-black spectrum. However I can't stand the bright, Irish greens. Hurts my eyes.

I agree. Montblanc Daniel Defoe Palm Green is one of my favourites at the moment.

[inkstainedruth]

 

Hilarious! Don't neglect to read this.

Further proof that there are people with way too much free time on their hands (joining the ranks of those responsible for the "hamster dance" website and that of "Badger Badger....").

I just skimmed the second part of it due to lack of time between catching up on 27 pages of new FPN content and slogging through the vacation laundry, which is now approaching load #9 (or #10, if you count running sleeping bags on a double load each to get all the detergent rinsed out... ).

My personal take on the original question would that it would likely be a Diamine ink (MI6 personnel do, after all, support Queen and Country). Of which my favorite would be Diamine Emerald. Okay, it's one of my favorite green inks just in general... (also like Herbin Vert Empire, but it faded to sort of a murky color, and the [reformulated] Noodler's Army Green -- but NAG wouldn't have been around when the James Bond books were written; not actually sure about Diamine Emerald, but it's a great green that isn't too bright and obnoxious). I suppose that given the time frame something like Parker Penman Emerald might also be available, but I haven't tried it.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[m2squad120th]

I use green ink every day at my job. Either Noodler's Bad Green Gator or De Atramentis document green. I work for a regulatory agency and everything needs to be water proof. I picked green because everyone here initials or signs things in blue or black. I can leaf through a lot of reports or letters and if they have a "splash" of green I know I have already seen them at a glance instead of having to read through every name. Also, I really like green ink

[twdpens]

I watched a program about MI6 and one of the people on the program stated that one of the enduring traditions of MI6 is that its head writes in the log with green ink. It's a tradition carried over from the founder for when he was in the Royal Navy and their captains wrote with green ink. I'm just curious if anyone here writes with green ink and why?

 

 

It's only Royal Navy Admirals that write in green. Captains and other ranks have to use their own specific colour (sorry, can't remember what they are).

 

HTH,

 

Martin

[Bentlink]

I just tried green ink in the past week--private Reserve Sherwood Green. I like the way it looks in my journal, and have been tentatively using it on documents with a broader audience. No dirty looks so far.

[tfwall]

What an interesting thread.

I wish someone from the Navy or from MI6 would actually chime in about their use of green ink.

 

Worth remembering that most naval officers write in black ink exclusively, due to convention or regulation. Colors tend to come and go among communities and individual units.

 

For a time in USN, commanding officers signed documents in blue, ostensibly for its non-reproducibility on documents. Especially documents dealing with receipt and transfer of special weapons.

 

When I first entered the service, the CO was using green, the exec or the senior enlisted man was using red and blue was not really popular at all.

 

Many of my executive officers have preferred green ink to quickly annotate their changes on the legions of correspondence that they deal with as the supervisor of the yeomen and administrative department.

 

That all being said, blue and green are the principal inks that get used by specific officers. Black is the standard. Red is (usually) reserved for annotating "out-of-specs", errors and corrections. Other color pens are difficult to locate and often difficult to read. I have seen some large departments try to parcel out a range of different colors. Usually the effect is lost as we spend more time trying to figure out if that initial is in "sky blue", "light blue" or "turquoise"...

 

Dating from about a hundred years ago, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill talks about his correspondence with First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher in his memoirs: "I had for a long time been accustomed to write my minutes in red ink. Fisher habitually used a green pencil. To quote his words, 'it was the port and starboard lights.' As long as the port and starboard lights shone together, all went well." For the non-nautical reader, the running lights on a ship are red on the port/left side and green on the starboard/right side. This helps you figure out which way a ship is going at night.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Chemyst

[mcgeechan]

I write in whatever ink takes my fancy

 

But I did talk with an old customer one day, he seen me writing with a fountain pen and started talking about that rather than work. He told me he use to work in a Rope Factory in the office, each level of staff wrote with a different colour of ink.

 

Black - general office clerks.

Blue - supervisors.

Violet - Managers.

Green - only the owner.

 

He said it was to immediately see who wrote what on any communication.