Eldest continuously produced inks

[josephholsten]

I’m sure a bunch of us use our nibbed pens out of a sense of continuity with the past. But I’ve wondered: what are the longest running ink lines out there?

Of course, there’s plenty of subcategories here so just let me know what you know.

J Herbin, Pelikan and Diamine have been making fountain pen ink for a while, does anyone know when their oldest lines were introduced?

Of course, Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black is said to have gone through reformulation relatively recently, does anyone know exactly when that was?

And which ink has the oldest formulation? Sheaffer managed to move their works to Slovenia while retaining the feel of Skrip we know and love, but now it appears they’ve moved their new works to China and reformulated. So perhaps Waterman’s?

Or do you know fun facts about  dip, calligraphy, copy, printing, India inks of great heritage?

I’d love to know. 

[arcfide]

I'm sort of interested in this as well, but as far as I can tell, nearly all of them have undergone some level of formulation change over the years, and it's hard to pinpoint which happened when. Parker and Waterman both have potentially undergone formula changes relatively recently, particularly in some of their inks, and Sheaffer may also be the same. Pilot changed their Blue Black in the early 90's I think from IG to Cellulose Reactive, but I don't know about their blue or black. Platinum has been making their Blue Black ink for a very long time, and it's still at least compositionally similar to its past inks, in that it's still an IG based ink, and it appears to have retained color fidelity over the years, but it's not clear what other subtle formulation changes might have occurred. 

 

 

[josephholsten]

One related point: is there a wiki that’s particularly good for the fountain pen community? I feel like I’ve had a number of questions where we could collect our knowledge and evidence together, instead of relying on the heroic efforts of individuals like eg http://www.richardspens.com/

 

Or is this a service that needs to be created? 

[Runnin_Ute]

3 hours ago, josephholsten said:

One related point: is there a wiki that’s particularly good for the fountain pen community? I feel like I’ve had a number of questions where we could collect our knowledge and evidence together, instead of relying on the heroic efforts of individuals like eg http://www.richardspens.com/

 

Or is this a service that needs to be created? 

Not necessarily a formal wiki, but there is a lot of information stored in the forums itself. It takes some patience in searching, but it is attainable.

 

Richard Binder put his together over many years.

[Karmachanic]

J. Herbin 350th Anniversary ink set

[khalameet]

But even Herbin inks have undergone some reformulation. I remember when the Herbin folks had the mold problem with their inks they handled this very openly and said themselves that there are always slight reformulations, due to chemical regulations and so on. They say their ink is 350 years old but they literally said that there is no such thing as a 350 year old fomula which is still begin used. But that differs maybe from country to country or even from Europe to other countries.

[Karmachanic]

2 hours ago, khalameet said:

But even Herbin inks have undergone some reformulation.

 

Everything has changed from 350 years ago, including the air we breathe and the water we drink.

[josephholsten]

So it’s nice to have an answer, but why do we believe that J Herbin Perle Noire is the oldest? What’s the best evidence that isn’t J Herbin marketing materials?

 

And if it went away, what would be second oldest? Is it a near thing? I vaguely recall Pelikan 4001 not being in catalogs until ~1909, but don’t have a good source to hand. 

[Olya]

J Herbin has been in continuous business over the course of those 350 years as ink makers, there are archives etc.

Yes, even old brands have their lore and fib a bit here and there, but I'd say J Herbin's claim isn't that great a fib compared to some others.

 

Their Perle Noire would be the hands-down oldest ink in continuous production.

Brands to add to J Herbin would be any of the oldies, Parker Quink, Waterman, Pelikan, Montblanc, Pilot, Diamine, Sailor, Lamy, Platinum off the top of my head... And the oldest colours in continuous production would be the standard black, blue, blue black, green, red, purple.

 

J Herbin's 350 years anniversary inks are their oldest colours in continuous production.

 

All inks have undergone reformulations quite regularly over the decades, partly due to regulations, partly due to innovations.

 

Pelikan 4001 Blue Black is still an iron gall, not sure when the last reformulation was.

No longer IGs are Montblanc blue black (change in the 2010s), Pilot blue black (change in the 1990s).

 

Closest to old style IGs is Diamine Registrar's (meaning it's the strongest IG, the others are nowadays weaker, gentler formulas).

[Mr.Rene]

Everything has changed from 200 years ago, including the synthetic dyes, main ingredient for ink makers, so it is not unusual new recipes for fountain pens inks formulations.

Regards.

[yazeh]

and inks that were used 300 years ago couldn't be used in a fountain pen, could they?

[lapis]

Getting back to the Pelikan thing: I asked them several years ago about their 4001 blue-black, which "used to be" an iron gall ink. They (Pelikan headquarters in Hanover) said that that was, yes, once an IG ink but no longer. I.e. up to about 27 years before. Our good ol' Cap'n had/has a nice image of a bottle of this on which the label explicitly says "FERRO-GALLIC". However, new web ads since about 5-6 years from Pelikan themselves claimed that the 4001 Blue-Black did/does  have IG in it. I see two possibilities: (1) there always has been at least some  IG in it although its concentration had been reduced over the years around 1990-2017, after which they again increased that somewhat; (2) the concentration (however low it may be today) was in the few years before that, even so little that they dubbed it (the ink) at that time "non-IG".

 

Whew!

[Flaxmoore]

8 hours ago, Olya said:

Closest to old style IGs is Diamine Registrar's (meaning it's the strongest IG, the others are nowadays weaker, gentler formulas).

There's one mass-market iron gall that makes Diamine Registrar look like tap water, though.

 

KWZ IG Blue-Black has a much sharper color change, and much faster, indicative of more gallotannic acid and iron.

[Mr.Rene]

54 minutes ago, lapis said:

 I see two possibilities: (1) there always has been at least some  IG in it although its concentration had been reduced over the years around 1990-2017, after which they again increased that somewhat; (2) the concentration (however low it may be today) was in the few years before that, even so little that they dubbed it (the ink) at that time "non-IG".

 

Whew!

 

This kind of inks, iron gal (Ferro-Gallicus in Latin ),is an iron gall base, the "mother" component and dye solution. You can add more dye solution and less iron gall base and you will get different inks formulas, inks performances and colors intensity...

Regards.

[Olya]

35 minutes ago, Flaxmoore said:

There's one mass-market iron gall that makes Diamine Registrar look like tap water, though.

 

KWZ IG Blue-Black has a much sharper color change, and much faster, indicative of more gallotannic acid and iron.

As someone who has no IG inks and doesn't plan on getting them (i.e. doesn't know all that much about them), I'd say that is indeed an indicator that the KWZ ink has much more IG!

Which is interesting, as for the most part I'd read they are a "milder" composition, maybe that's true of the other colours, but the blue black is more traditional and therefore stronger?!

[BigBlot]

Not fountain pen ink, but when it comes to an oldest continued brand of ink, would some of the Chinese and Japanese ink sticks fall into this category? No, don't have a nominee, but given how long ink sticks have been around, it's a possibility.

[Karmachanic]

Back in 2300 BC and up until relatively recently, Chinese ink sticks, paper and brushes, were made like this; 李子柒

[LizEF]

3 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

Chinese ink sticks

American ink sticks:

 

(OK, OK, you could call them Japanese ink sticks since the ink is Sailor Jentle Black and the pen is a Pilot Prera...  But really, that just ruins everything...)

[Karmachanic]

Is that an ancient Pilot Prera or a modern Pilot Prera?

[LizEF]

48 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

Is that an ancient Pilot Prera or a modern Pilot Prera?

  It's new, purchased in the past several months (forget exactly when, but recently).  (But, just in case my gag was too poor, the Prera was not the thing I was calling a stick.)