Sheaffer's Ink

[Penspaperpaint]

Hi ya'll,

 

I'm not a pen enthusiast in particular, but I am an art teacher and I love doing calligraphy / hand letting units with my students. ive been gifted what amounts to over 6 gallons of Sheaffers Ink in various colors and sizes, from 2oz. Bottles to 32oz. Refill bottles. Alll are unopened and were even still in the original shipping boxes, which were deteriorating badly & needed pitched. I've opened a few and been testing them with a water brush and experimenting with them as I would with watercolors for some interesting results.

 

Wondering if these are safe to use with preteen/teens? They're old, is there any ingredient in them that has since been deemed hazardous or an allergen that I should be aware of before using them in a public setting? And, do,you have any ideas for using this mass amount of ink? I'm gifting some to the non-profit arts org that I work with but truly between the two of us, it'll take years to use it up. I'm looking for ideas!

 

Thanks!!

 

Here's a little video montage of all of these bless filled with bottles of beautiful ink!

[Arkanabar]

Odds are that they contain a little phenol. When I was in high school more than thirty years ago, we used dilute carbolic acid (same stuff) to sanitize the biology lab. While I wouldn't hesitate to use inks with that concentration of phenol, your school district's lawyers may want to make sure you get a waiver before proceeding. Note for your parents and attorneys that this is the active ingredient in Chloraseptic sore throat spray, in which it is likely to be more highly concentrated.

[ink-syringe]

oh, that super quink! I would kill for a couple bottles of that! Lucky you! & the old Sheaffer Blue Black!

 

Yeah. Phenol.

 

Also, if some has evaporated you might want to eye dropper in a little water.

[Fuzzy_Bear]

It may sound wrong, but some of the inks may be worth serious money. If they are, you could sell some and donate the money for other items.

 

Fuzzy

[ParkerDuofold]

Yeah, what Fuzzy said; you're sitting on a small fortune there. I wouldn't fritter those away. Sell them on e-bay... you'll generate plenty of revenue to buy plenty of conventional art supplies from Dick Blick.

 

- Anthony

[Ink Stained Wretch]

Cognition check time!

 

Didn't I see this exact posting the other day, and didn't I reply to it? Either the OP is posting the same thing in more than one forum or I am seriously losing recent memories.

 

Either way, sell it, don't give it to students who won't know what it is and who won't appreciate it. Sell it and you can buy art supplies with the revenue from the sale.

 

That is one great haul of bottled ink there .

 

PS - Does the OP think that maybe his good friend who gave him all of this ink would like an additional friend ?

[banjomike]

The old Shaeffer permanent black was my go-to drawing ink for years and years. It's not completely waterproof like India ink or Noodler's black, but it resists water very well, and is black black. I used it for a lot of calligraphy work, and it's just as good as any other I've ever used for non-fading permanence on fine paper.

 

The Shaeffer calligraphy cartridge pens like it a lot; you can fill an empty cartridge using a blunt hypodermic needle if you want to try one of your bottled ink out in one. If done slowly, it's really not very messy at all to do.

 

As a writing ink, I've found it penetrated all the way through cheap paper, which was sometimes a problem, and it didn't dry particularly fast. I read somewhere a long time ago that it was 'vegetable based', whatever that means, and I bought one bottle back in the early 90's that smelled sort of musty-moldy.

 

But those bottles! They may not be elegant, but the built-in inkwell is just the best ever. I found they are perfect for filling converters all the way up. I always use them for my most-used ink, and I always remove the converter and fill it, without sucking the ink up through the nib. The inkwell bottle words superbly for this, and it's a lot quicker and cleaner than leaving the converter on the nib.

 

For a dip pen, they are also the greatest ever, as the inkwell is shallow enough that only the nib gets wet.

 

I popped for about a dozen of old Shaeffer's bottles, all mostly filled, last year just for the bottles. Some of the ink had been frozen, which isn't good, but not all.

 

The new black ink is OK, but not as good as the old stuff. The ink was once made in the USA, but ever since about 2000, it has been manufactured in Serbia. The present ink is just OK, but the older Serbian ink was pretty bad.

I do really like new Shaeffer's red a lot; it's bright scarlet on paper, not crimson. It's not very waterproof, but the red doesn't fade.

 

As art material, I don't think any of your vintage ink is very good for the little kids. The teens may be old enough to understand that ink isn't good to drink, but it is valuable, and while it's as good a calligraphy ink as any, and probably better than some, for beginners, not all Shaeffer's is equally good for calligraphy, so you're probably better off selling it to aficionados than letting the students use it up.

[PenTieRun]

Quick and gentle correction. Recent Sheaffer ink production has taken place in Slovenia not Serbia.

[amberleadavis]

Lucky students!

 

Yes, the ink is still useable and safe.

[carlos.q]

Quick and gentle correction. Recent Sheaffer ink production has taken place in Slovenia not Serbia.

.... and just in case: Slovenia is not the same as Slovakia!

http://www.slovak-republic.org/slovenia/

Edited March 30, 2017 by carlos.q

[Parker51]

Would you possibly be interested in trading the fine vintage ink you have for some safe modern art supplies? If so, I suggest you contact one of the many online sellers of ink such as this who,also sell art supplies and who thus get it at wholesale. In particular I suggest Alan Cohan who's store is in Chapel Hill. He named it Crazy Alan's Emporium. He deals in both Fountain Pens and Art Supplies and he is a very nice guy.

[Ink Stained Wretch]

But those bottles! ....

 

For a dip pen, they are also the greatest ever, as the inkwell is shallow enough that only the nib gets wet.

 

For some years I wrote with a dip pen, and I used bottles of Sheaffer Skrip Jet Black ink. Yes, that "Skripwell" was certainly useful for the dip pens.

 

The old Sheaffer Jet Black ink was pretty water resistant. Still, I always wanted it to be more so. I once left my journal in a window where it got rained on, and those two pages are pretty much illegible, although you can still see the writing on them. This is part of why I was so thrilled when in 2004, I found that Nathan Tardif had started to produce Noodler's Black ink. No problem with rain water getting rid of what I've written with that ink. I have also been more careful about leaving my journal in the window .