Suggestions for a Long-Lived Blue and Blue-Black?

[BigBlot]

Came across two documents I'd written in Sheaffer Blue. One  was circa 1984, the other 1989. The one from 1989 was a surprise for two reasons: I'd written in with a fountain pen, and it had faded more than one written in 1984. Both show what I think is significant fading. I remember the blue was a vibrant and saturated as ink from a bottle Sheaffer Deluxe Blue. What I saw looked noticeably pale. Since they will soon be a mere thirty-seven and thirty-two years old, that give me pause. Now contrast that to the unknown blue-black fountain pen ink on a document written by my mother in the 1940s, which is much darker and better saturated. Can't judge fading in this case, but it looks slight compared to the blue. All three documents have been stored away from light.

 

This raises the question of what is a good blue and blue black fountain pen ink that will resist fading? For blue-black, Noodler's 54th Massachussets comes to mind, but nothing for blue. Any suggestions?

[LizEF]

If I want a permanent, lightfast ink, I use Sailor Seiboku or Souboku.  Supposedly, they're both variants of "blue black", but Seiboku doesn't look it.

[silverlifter]

Any of the permanent (pigment) blues: Platinum, MB, R&K, etc. There are many options.

[yazeh]

More or less any of Noodler's bulletproof inks.

Your mother's writing was probably done with an iron gall ink.

I'm not sure if they're lightfast, however, you can go for Essri or Diamine Registrar's or KWZ blue black. 

[A Smug Dill]

47 minutes ago, BigBlot said:

This raises the question of what is a good blue and blue black fountain pen ink that will resist fading?

 

Resist fading in which specific way — preservation of the content's legibility, or the fidelity of the colour of the ink marks as the author/writer intended for it to look, since you mentioned, “I remember the blue was a vibrant and saturated as ink”?

 

To preserve the content's legibility, look for inks that are marketed as being “document-proof”, or conforming to ISO 11798, 12757-2, 14145-2, etc. Among them, Lamy Crystal Ink Benitoite, Rohrer & Klingner's Dokumentus product line, and De Atramentis Document Inks.

 

To preserve colour fidelity, your best bet would be pigment inks. In addition to the ones already mentioned, there's the Sailor STORiA product line, and PenBBS produced quite a few pigment inks too.

[Runnin_Ute]

I have some books that belonged to my maternal grandfather that were published in 1923. Wonderful shape still nearly 100 years later. But back to the topic at hand. In several volumes, grandpa signed his name or made some other note and dated it. Dates between 1923 and 1932. I believe he used an iron gall blue black ink but very little of the color or legibility is gone.   I don't photos on my laptop but I'll see if I can from my phone. 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Runnin_Ute
Added photo

[BigBlot]

3 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Resist fading in which specific way — preservation of the content's legibility, or the fidelity of the colour of the ink marks as the author/writer intended for it to look, since you mentioned, “I remember the blue was a vibrant and saturated as ink”?

 

To preserve the content's legibility, look for inks that are marketed as being “document-proof”, or conforming to ISO 11798, 12757-2, 14145-2, etc. Among them, Lamy Crystal Ink Benitoite, Rohrer & Klingner's Dokumentus product line, and De Atramentis Document Inks.

 

To preserve colour fidelity, your best bet would be pigment inks. In addition to the ones already mentioned, there's the Sailor STORiA product line, and PenBBS produced quite a few pigment inks too.

Preserving legibility. In this instance, the writing is still legible, but the way it's fading, it will get to the point where it will be difficult to impossible to read. At this rate, maybe not in my lifetime, but it will get to that point. For these documents, that's not important, and I do use Platinum Black, Noodler's Black, UniBall Signo 207, or Sharpie pen (not marker) when I need writing to last. But I'm partial to blue, and don't quite like the shade in the Signo 207.

 

You've brought up the ISO question. I've know about it for ballpoints and rollerballs; is there one for fountain pen inks? I know there is or were laws specifying inks for documents in the UK and Germany. Since learning about the ISO spec, have thought about a Quink ballpoint refill for my Jotter instead of the Space Pen refill currently in it.

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, BigBlot said:

You've brought up the ISO question. I've know about it for ballpoints and rollerballs; is there one for fountain pen inks?

 

Not that I'm aware. I haven't actually read the individual standards myself, as I don't have access to them either through work or at a library somewhere, and as a private citizen I'm too cheap to spend the equivalent price of one or even a few good fountain pens on getting my own copy. However, from what I gathered reading the first little bits of each one (that are ‘free’ to access), ISO 12757 and 14145 are the specific application of ISO 11798 to ballpoint and rollerball pens (and their refills) respectively. Rohrer & Klingner markets its Dokumentus line of fountain pen inks as ISO 12757-2 compliant, and Montblanc markets its Permanent Black and Permanent Blue fountain pen inks as ISO 14145-2 compliant.

[cellmatrix]

for a long lived blue black, iron gall is the time tested choice. Its use dates back to first century AD and you can find many surviving medieval manuscripts which are perfectly legible today. I am not sure how long Noodlers has been around, maybe 15 or 16 years? Please correct me if I am wrong...

[cellmatrix]

23 hours ago, Runnin_Ute said:

I have some books that belonged to my maternal grandfather that were published in 1923. Wonderful shape still nearly 100 years later. But back to the topic at hand. In several volumes, grandpa signed his name or made some other note and dated it. Dates between 1923 and 1932. I believe he used an iron gall blue black ink but very little of the color or legibility is gone.   I don't photos on my laptop but I'll see if I can from my phone. 

100 years later and still looks great! For sure its iron gall, you can see the oxidized darkening.

[yazeh]

3 minutes ago, cellmatrix said:

for a long lived blue black, iron gall is the time tested choice. Its use dates back to first century AD and you can find many surviving medieval manuscripts which are perfectly legible today. I am not sure how long Noodlers has been around, maybe 15 or 16 years? Please correct me if I am wrong...

3rd century to be more precise, is the earliest known iron gall document  

 

[BigBlot]

58 minutes ago, yazeh said:

3rd century to be more precise, is the earliest known iron gall document  

 

It might date further back. Pliny the Younger records a iron based ink recipe, and some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are written in inks containing metals. The oldest IG document I've personally seen was a 13th Century copy of the Magna Carta, and I've seen legal documents dating from the early 19th Century. Both were legible.

 

That said, the case of the Declaration of Independence serves as a counter example. It and the copies were also written in IG ink, and in just a few decades then Secretary of State John Adams had copper plate facsimiles made. Of course, that copy had been exposed to sunlight for years, but it's still worth noting. There were also IG inks so corrosive that they have eaten through the paper and/or parchment.

 

Cellmatrix brings up a valid point not only about Noodlers, but about all inks claiming archival properties. Yes, there are IG ink documents nearly two millennia old. Documents written in carbon black based inks have the same or longer record. But exactly what recipe was used for the ink in those long lived documents may not be known. My guess is that writings in carbon black ink might be easier to analyze than those in IG, and everyone was mostly using their own IG ink recipe until at least the 19th Century. Thus, even modern IG and carbon black inks are in the same boat as Noodler's. When I read reviews of  at least some modern IG inks and they describe them fading to a gray over time, that doesn't fit with the ink on the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, or those early 19th Century legal documents I mentioned. Those became more of a dark rusty color, which makes sense given the ink. I'm even skeptical of official government ink formulas used on documents I haven't seen.

 

My point is that when we use any modern ink, unless we've seen fading tests of inks, we're making an educated guess based on best knowledge. I think documents I've written in Platinum Black will be around as long as the paper, given that it's based on carbon black, but I don't know. The same with other inks.

 

Frankly, I doubt anyone will be interested in anything I've written for many years after I shake off this mortal coil, so even the Platinum Black longevity isn't much of an issue. But I'd like for what I write with a fountain pen to be around as long as it's needed.

[cellmatrix]

3 hours ago, yazeh said:

3rd century to be more precise, is the earliest known iron gall document  

 

I agree with bigblot - it seems that iron gall ink was first introduced during the first century AD (by Pliny the Elder). 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_gall_ink

 

It’s an interesting question bigblot brings up about the types of formulations of Middle Ages iron gall compared to modern iron gall. While I love using registrar inks from diamine or ESSRI which have to be made according to certain traditional requirements, I would not be surprised if they differ significantly from Middle Ages inks which I suspect would not be fountain pen friendly.

[arcfide]

Even modern iron gall inks that "fade to grey" only due so at first. The rusty color of iron gall inks is a part of their aging process, and all modern IG inks that I have tested do this at some point in their life. One of the tell tale signs of iron gall ink over time, according to what I have read, in longer documents, is the fading of those inks from a "pure black" color to a brown hue over time, whereas carbon inks retain their pure black hue indefinitely, but may show lift off. 

 

As for some specific recommendations, among the current best I would have to nominate any of the blue pigmented inks, including Sailor Storia Night, Seiboku, and Souboku, as well as Platinum Pigmented Blue, De Atramentis, Montblanc Permanent Blue, and others. From the objective, scientific measurements point of view, the pigmented inks today are just technically superior to anything else in terms of longevity that we have. 

 

That being said, they do come with various costs, as you don't get as wide a range of wetness levels, and some of these inks may be higher maintenance than others, while some might smudge more easily than other inks, and so forth. Dry time might not be what you want, or something else might not be to your liking. 

 

For your specific level of archival requirements, I think a *lot* of inks are open to you. In addition to Sailor's pigmented line, I would readily expect Sailor's main standard line of blue and blue black to be fairly long lived for dye-based inks, provided that you are not exposing them to light or moisture. Platinum's Blue Black ink has been around a long time as a document/archival ink, and it's a good iron gall with a definite blue hue. I consider it one of the better inks available today. It also has a long history of lasting, with a member of FPN giving some examples written by his mother decades past with the ink still retaining a high degree of fidelity and color. Pilot produces an excellent blue black ink that has been reported by sources that ought to know as having a cellulose reactive component, and it is water resistant and fade resistant, so it should also last quite a while. In the classic lines, Pelikan's 4001 Blue Black would be a good choice, as would any of the "big three" blue blacks, though I'd be less sure about their blues, as you have found out. The blue blacks, however, should last plenty for the needs you describe. As others have noted, any of the other heavier IG inks that write darker should last a good while as well. 

 

For inks *other* than iron gall or pigmented inks, I'd tend to avoid most of the bright blues. They don't usually seem to do too well. However, a good number of the normal blue black inks aren't terrible, and would probably last the time you wanted out of them, particularly those that get closer to black. 

 

If it were me, I'd be sticking to pigmented or stronger iron gall inks (not the IG-light stuff, but I would feel fine with Registrar's, ESSRI, KWZ IG Blue Black,  Pelikan 4001, and Platinum BB; not sure about R&K), and maybe Pilot Blue Black. IME, the permanent Noodler's blue inks aren't very well behaved, and that makes them a bit of a pain on paper, as they spread and penetrate strongly, so that restricts the type of pens you can use as well as the type of paper. 54th Mass. is one of the worst if not the worst that I have tested for this. Liberty's Elysium was the best, with Legal Blue having the strangest blue color but also the most reliable permanence behavior out of the bunch of brighter blues. 

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

My understanding about "ancient" formulas for IG inks is that they were designed more for parchment (which is processed from animal hide) than for paper.  And even then, there was a shift in paper production (I think in the 20th century sometime, but correct me if I'm wrong on the dates) from rag paper to wood pulp which is a lot more acidic than earlier forms of paper had been).

And the problem with modern (i.e., "safe for fountain pens") iron gall inks are that they are not generally, in my experience, overly lightfast.

@ Arcfide -- have you tried Noodler's Baltimore Canyon?  While I don't know how UV resistant it is, It's both more vibrant and more water resistant than Liberty's Elysium, and is rapidly becoming my favorite blue ink.  Not sure if it's in their regular lineup, or there were just some leftover bottles kicking around after last spring's Baltimore-Washington Pen Show -- but I found it in the Bromfield Pen Shop in Boston last fall.  I had it in one of the TWSBIs for a while, and the ink did not permanently stain the barrel (another plus in my book).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[arcfide]

5 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

My understanding about "ancient" formulas for IG inks is that they were designed more for parchment (which is processed from animal hide) than for paper.  And even then, there was a shift in paper production (I think in the 20th century sometime, but correct me if I'm wrong on the dates) from rag paper to wood pulp which is a lot more acidic than earlier forms of paper had been).

And the problem with modern (i.e., "safe for fountain pens") iron gall inks are that they are not generally, in my experience, overly lightfast.

@ Arcfide -- have you tried Noodler's Baltimore Canyon?  While I don't know how UV resistant it is, It's both more vibrant and more water resistant than Liberty's Elysium, and is rapidly becoming my favorite blue ink.  Not sure if it's in their regular lineup, or there were just some leftover bottles kicking around after last spring's Baltimore-Washington Pen Show -- but I found it in the Bromfield Pen Shop in Boston last fall.  I had it in one of the TWSBIs for a while, and the ink did not permanently stain the barrel (another plus in my book).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

I haven't tried Baltimore Canyon, but I'm somewhat reluctant regardless, because my main issue with the Noodler's inks hasn't been their colors or water resistance, but with their flow properties, which makes them very hard for me to use. I used to use 54th Mass. all the time, but then I realized that a significant amount of my annoyances and troubles were due to the ink, and not either pen or paper. KTC is somewhat easier to use on paper, but less in pen. All the Noodler's blues I've tried have been fine color-wise, but not fine behavior-wise on paper. If I can find a bottle of Baltimore Canyon around, or a sample, I'll probably give it a try, but at this point, the other inks I have are so much more well-behaved, but sufficient for my needs that I'm not sure Noodler's is really calling to me at this point. We'll see. 🙂 That is likely to change down the road, of course. 

 

I think there are two major things to consider with regards to modern IG inks vs. the older ones. From posts made by Pharmacist years ago on this forum, older ink recipes involved two IG components, one of which was reactive to light, and one of which was reactive to air. The combination of oxidation of both of these supposed fixed the ink more firmly to the page than just one or the other. However, the light-reactive component supposedly also meant that it was much less stable in the bottle, and could be relied upon to not last for a long time. 

 

The second contributor, I think, that people forget, is that traditional IG inks were *very* heavily applied to the page relative to what we have now, in much higher concentrations. If you've ever written with a feather pen, the ink levels applied to the page, and even with steel dip pens, is much higher than normal, and the concentrations were much higher as well. This would mean significantly higher levels of the oxidized particles embedded into the page, providing for a much more resilient imprint. Even so, we know that the older documents are *not* light stable or moisture stable. They were resistant to both light and moisture, but all the older documents are known to have suffered under both, even with parchment and cotton rag paper. There are older writings of people remarking about the brown color of sun baked IG inks and their fading in water over time. They were water resistant, but certainly not stable. 

 

With modern IG inks, most pens will apply the ink in a drier fashion and with the IG content being lower in some of the modern inks, it's no surprise that they appear to suffer under light/moisture more quickly, because there's just not as much IG there. If you take the same formula and increase the quantity on the page to get a solid black color, then those inks also show a stronger degree of resistance. But if you apply such a heavy IG load to the page, you get a black ink, which is not what many people want from a modern IG. 

[Jerome Tarshis]

Everybody who has posted so far appears to be thinking about inks. I think about paper. That has changed. I have had ordinary student notebooks from the 1970s and earlier in which writing done in blue ink has not faded. Beginning in the 1980s, possibly at some point in the 1970s, that ceased to be true. I am not one bit surprised to learn that blue writing from the 1980s has begun to fade. Ink has changed, but the paper is another consideration. I suspect that even today the right paper, and it wouldn't be the cheapest or most ordinary, would help ink resist fading rather than actually promote fading.

[Intensity]

On 2/13/2021 at 4:11 PM, LizEF said:

If I want a permanent, lightfast ink, I use Sailor Seiboku or Souboku.  Supposedly, they're both variants of "blue black", but Seiboku doesn't look it.

 

I second the Sailor Souboku recommendation for longevity, fading resistance, and behavior.  It has strong feathering resistance and is much better than average on bad paper.  Highly water resistant.

[BigBlot]

7 hours ago, arcfide said:

 

I haven't tried Baltimore Canyon, but I'm somewhat reluctant regardless, because my main issue with the Noodler's inks hasn't been their colors or water resistance, but with their flow properties, which makes them very hard for me to use. I used to use 54th Mass. all the time, but then I realized that a significant amount of my annoyances and troubles were due to the ink, and not either pen or paper. KTC is somewhat easier to use on paper, but less in pen. All the Noodler's blues I've tried have been fine color-wise, but not fine behavior-wise on paper. If I can find a bottle of Baltimore Canyon around, or a sample, I'll probably give it a try, but at this point, the other inks I have are so much more well-behaved, but sufficient for my needs that I'm not sure Noodler's is really calling to me at this point. We'll see. 🙂 That is likely to change down the road, of course. 

 

I think there are two major things to consider with regards to modern IG inks vs. the older ones. From posts made by Pharmacist years ago on this forum, older ink recipes involved two IG components, one of which was reactive to light, and one of which was reactive to air. The combination of oxidation of both of these supposed fixed the ink more firmly to the page than just one or the other. However, the light-reactive component supposedly also meant that it was much less stable in the bottle, and could be relied upon to not last for a long time. 

 

The second contributor, I think, that people forget, is that traditional IG inks were *very* heavily applied to the page relative to what we have now, in much higher concentrations. If you've ever written with a feather pen, the ink levels applied to the page, and even with steel dip pens, is much higher than normal, and the concentrations were much higher as well. This would mean significantly higher levels of the oxidized particles embedded into the page, providing for a much more resilient imprint. Even so, we know that the older documents are *not* light stable or moisture stable. They were resistant to both light and moisture, but all the older documents are known to have suffered under both, even with parchment and cotton rag paper. There are older writings of people remarking about the brown color of sun baked IG inks and their fading in water over time. They were water resistant, but certainly not stable. 

 

With modern IG inks, most pens will apply the ink in a drier fashion and with the IG content being lower in some of the modern inks, it's no surprise that they appear to suffer under light/moisture more quickly, because there's just not as much IG there. If you take the same formula and increase the quantity on the page to get a solid black color, then those inks also show a stronger degree of resistance. But if you apply such a heavy IG load to the page, you get a black ink, which is not what many people want from a modern IG. 

I think IG works by not only binding with the material, but by oxidation. That gives it the rusty appearance over time. It also causes iron to oxidize in the unused ink, making particles precipitate out. Some IG recipes mention using the ink fairly quickly.

 

I need to make a quill pen again to try with dip inks. I was shown how as a child, so long ago I can't clearly remember who, but now wonder about how that information survived. We concocted an ink out of food coloring and it wrote reasonably well, though the ink was a bit thin.

[Dimy]

As many have already suggested, pigment inks are wau to go for this. I second sailor seiboku and souboku inks as blue-blacks both behave well on most papers too...they are not exactly blue inks in my eyes. Then sailor, platinum, MB, etc. for blues and blue-black.

 

IG inks will not be my first choice when it comes to archival characteristics, at least not modern ones, and none if you want colour to retain itself....