Let's talk "trad" blacks

[arcfide]

So, the previous discussion on "eldest" inks got me thinking back to simpler times and simpler days, and I am now in a downward research and exploration spiral! However, because there are so many more "interesting" inks in the world, it's sometimes hard to find a good set of collated resources on the classics. I'd love if people can weigh in a bit on this! Here are some questions I've been pondering:

 

• What were the "desirable and dependable" inks of old? 
• What were the properties that people were looking for and how did they compete?
• How broad of a reach did they have? 
• When did companies introduce their own inks, and how much of a part of their life was ink versus pens? 
• How did cartridges changes the perception of trad inks?
• How does those inks compare to one another in their modern formulations?
• How faithful are the modern formulations to the total ownership experience one would have had back in the day? 

 

Overall, my impression from back in the day and having talked to a few of my locals who were around at the time, the first thing I think is obvious is the overall conservative colors. It seems to me that when it came to inks that people reached for, the huge preponderance of preference was for a good black ink. Even blue black inks of the time might be more accurately considered a "fun" black ink, since in the end what was left on the page was usually judged based on its contrast and blackness (in some books at least), and this is especially brought up in most business manuals as well. School children had their washable blues/violets, and women had the liberty to "play around" with various ink colors, but I get the distinct impression that for personal or professional use at the time, men were almost universally expected to converse in black, with relatively few exceptions. That left colored inks for very close friends and internal projects. 

 

So of course, that leaves me with the consideration of the "trad" blacks! These are the blacks that a huge proportion of societies across the world would have lived by. How many of the standard inks today were around then and would have qualified as trad blacks of the era(s)? Here's a list I've got so far:

 

• Waterman
• Sheaffer
• Parker
• Cross (how big a player?) 
• Herbin Perle Noire
• Pelikan 40001
• Montblanc (what *was* their trad black?)
• Aurora
• Diamine (what was theirs?)
• Montegrappa (were they a player?)
• Lamy (did they have much influence?)
• Sailor
• Platinum
• Pilot

 

In the Americas, it seems to me that Waterman, Sheaffer, and Parker were the big ink players of the time, and I am honestly having trouble finding much if anything on the Cross brand w.r.t. ink at the time, did they even do anything? 

 

In Europe, it seems like Pelikan and Herbin would have been decent names, and Diamine would surely have been there too, but what about Montblanc, Lamy, and the others? How long have they been doing the trad black ink thing? Lamy surely for a long time; when did Montblanc get into the game? I'm not even sure they are *in* the game at all, as I think Montblanc doesn't really have what I would consider a "trad black" in their lineup at all. 

 

In Japan, it's pretty clear that Pilot, Sailor, and Platinum all did their own ink things almost from the beginning, including advertising and encouraging the use of their inks in their own fountain pens. 

 

Now, I'm missing a European and Japanese perspective on the most influential inks and how people considered them, except that washable colors were associated with children in Europe much as in the U.S. The way I'm reading it, it's not clear to me how strongly IG blue blacks had an influence over the standard inks in Europe or Japan. I know that the Pilot and Platinum Blue Blacks were pretty popular for their time, and Pilot's Blue Black at least was much closer to a black ink than a blue than it is now. 

 

This leaves with wanting to pick a "collection list" of modern black inks that would be considered trad blacks. What would that list look like? I think the properties are as followed, taken mostly from what I see emphasized from traditional American writing culture:

 

• Emphasis on non-clogging, free flowing ink (this appears to have been one of the number one points of contention at the time)
• Dye-based; while IG blue blacks were around, these "trad" blacks I think were "writing fluids" that competed *against* the traditional IG blue black "ink" that were commonly used in dip pens, and so would have tended to be dye-based to get the properties they wanted
• Somewhat permanent, meaning that it holds on with water, and isn't likely to fade spontaneously. However, from talking to some people, it seems clear that permanence from the modern sense of the word simply wasn't considered as critical, so they wouldn't have been expected to be fade-proof or water-proof, but merely more stubborn than other, less quality inks of the time
• At least an attempt at a good solid black color (they weren't trying to achieve the best sheen or shading or get interesting colors). 
• Still produced today with some reasonable "connection" to the past, despite likely formulation changes over time, which pretty much rules out most of Montblanc's lineup, as they have gone through a number of classic ink transitions over the years that really changed their blacks
• Relatively quick drying

 

It seems that the big three classic American inks would have to be Waterman Black, Sheaffer Skrip Black, and Parker Quink Permanent Black. I think it's hard to argue that these weren't the biggest players taking the lion's share. It also seems to me that maybe Waterman was such an established ink player by the time Sheaffer and Parker got into the game that they were the king in that regard, but I'm not sure how true that is. 

 

In Japan, I think it's fair to point at Sailor, Platinum, and Pilot as all being relatively conservative and having their classic blacks in pretty straightforward terms. I wonder how long they have had their standard blacks the way that they are now? Given the use of celluloid and rubbers in the past, were these inks still so alkaline in the past as they are today? Given how the various makers often seemed to be copying one of the big players in the West, I wonder if their formulations were attempts to duplicate or replicate inks in the West or not? 

 

I'm a little more stymied in Europe. There's obviously documented Pelikan 4001 ink, with their Black, and Herbin's Perle Noire. I think clearly Lamy Black, Pelikan 4001 Black, and Herbin Perle Noire all qualify. Diamine probably also qualifies, but for how long have they been making fountain pen ink versus dip pen ink and when did they get into the "trad black" game? And, I also get the impression that IG inks might have "held on" longer in Europe than in America and maybe even Japan, so how did that affect things? When did Aurora start producing its black, or any of the others? 

 

I think one interesting thing about the trad blacks was how quickly they came to take over in certain regions from the older IG inks which would have been absolutely dominant before then. While people still wanted their documents to stick around and not to become illegible if rain got on the envelope or the like, it seems clear that people were ready to give up a significant portion of the traditional IG qualities in order to get ink that flowed well, didn't clog, and didn't interact poorly with the pens. it also seems to me that they were willing to give up on total color intensity as well in order to get this. The clear differentiator back then seemed to be how well the ink treated the pen and made the writing experience worthwhile, rather than how long the ink would last on the page or how dark a color it was. As long as it was suitably vivid and intense, and as long as it was reasonably permanent, then getting additional gains there seemed to be undesirable if they compromised on usability. 

 

It's also interesting how dry times were important. Today we have a lot of inks that are pretty slow drying, and we use papers that make the problem even worse, whereas fast drying inks are something that seems to have been quite desirable at the time, more so on the whole then than now, I guess. 

 

Of all the trad inks, I have to admit that the story and history behind Parker Quink always gets me interested. That might just be because there is so much of it given the heavy advertising that Parker did. It's also one of the only inks to have its own Wikipedia page, which is something.

 

One game I like playing is "correlating" inks from various regions. In this case, I asked myself whether the Japanese inks might be "correlated" in behaviors to a competitor in the classics in Europe or the U.S. In my case, the general note I have is that the Japanese blacks all seem to run more neutral to cool in tone as a rule compared to the U.S. or European brands, with the exception of Waterman and maybe Aurora. However, I find the "feel" of the ink even more interesting, and the consistent testing from "An Ink Guy" on Youtube gives me a chance to match inks based on viscosity and dry times. I don't have the numbers for Platinum's Dye based ink, so I can't compare that one, but I can compare Sailor Black and Pilot Black. These actually both have very interesting matches in this regard.

 

Sailor's Black has a viscosity and dry time almost perfectly matching Parker Quink Black, which is really interesting to me simply because the viscosity ratings are *so* far outside of normal (one of the wettest). 

 

Pilot's Black also has a close match in Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black, with the viscosities matching up very closely, and both being close to each other in dry time. 

 

And how much of the colors of these inks were influenced by the inks that came before them? Given the West's familiarity with IG inks, with blue/purple tones combined with the browner IG, influence them into that type of black color? How much did the sumi and carbon inks of Japan influence the sense of black in those countries? 

 

Anyways, I know people usually find trad black inks boring, but I'm somewhat fascinated by them and their interconnectedness and the like, so I'd love to hear your thoughts and anecdotes. One of the fun stories I like to hear are of various people who know relatives from the past who simply had a single pen and a single ink that they bought religiously for decades. 

 

Finally, there's talk about historical figures and their pen preferences, but what about their ink preferences? 

 

[Mr.Rene]

7 minutes ago, arcfide said:

 

 

Finally, there's talk about historical figures and their pen preferences, but what about their ink preferences? 

 

 If I am not wrong President Roosevelt loved intense red ink color to write & signature.

I am sure Poet Nobel winner Pablo Neruda loved green inks...

 

[arcfide]

From this page, the provenance of Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black would put it sometime around the 1950's:

 

4001 And Günther Wagner’s Lost But Not Forgotten Pelikan Inks « The Pelikan's Perch

 

Though perhaps you could argue that the 2001 line described above could be connected there. 

[arcfide]

Researching the history of Lamy suggests that Lamy didn't gain its own ink production or cartridge making capacity until the 80's. Before then they were apparently outsourcing their ink production to someone else. 

[dan in montreal]

Interesting thread. The thing is, most of these inks have had their formulas changed over the years. Remember Solv-X?  Current Parker Quink Black is most definitely different than the original Quink black of 80 years ago. I'm pretty sure all of the old brands have changed their formulas to conform to safety regulations and the like over the years. My point is even if Hemingway loaded up his Montegrappa pen with old Parker Quink Black, modern Quink is another animal. Same for Waterman, Pelikan (as the article arcfide linked to suggests) and Sheaffer inks.  I'll leave it at that as there are people here with far more knowledge than I...

On a side note, I still occasionally use Quink Black and Waterman Black. They are probably the same ink nowadays. My bottles are at least 5 years old, as I've been using other blacks, mainly Noodler's and Herbin. But for the longest time, my go-to black was Quink black. I've just taken out a thirty-five year old notebook and it still looks pretty good. It's what I wrote that is a little embarrassing, I must say.

[arcfide]

2 hours ago, dan in montreal said:

Interesting thread. The thing is, most of these inks have had their formulas changed over the years. Remember Solv-X?  Current Parker Quink Black is most definitely different than the original Quink black of 80 years ago. I'm pretty sure all of the old brands have changed their formulas to conform to safety regulations and the like over the years. My point is even if Hemingway loaded up his Montegrappa pen with old Parker Quink Black, modern Quink is another animal. Same for Waterman, Pelikan (as the article arcfide linked to suggests) and Sheaffer inks.  I'll leave it at that as there are people here with far more knowledge than I...

On a side note, I still occasionally use Quink Black and Waterman Black. They are probably the same ink nowadays. My bottles are at least 5 years old, as I've been using other blacks, mainly Noodler's and Herbin. But for the longest time, my go-to black was Quink black. I've just taken out a thirty-five year old notebook and it still looks pretty good. It's what I wrote that is a little embarrassing, I must say.

 

There's no doubt that the formulas have changed, though it's interesting to try to figure out how much and for how long and when, but that's often quite hard to do. 

 

I've actually picked up a bottle of new Quink Black to compare against the Waterman Black that I have already, and they are definitely much more similar to each other than to other blacks, especially in how they react to water. I'm in the middle of testing them in pens right now, but I think there might be one or two things that is very different between them that I can't account for yet. 

[arcfide]

It's strange, my Waterman Black and Parker Quink could easily be confused for the same ink, and I almost want to say that they *are* the same ink, but at the same time, they swab differently in terms of viscosity and coming out of the pen. Other than viscosity, I'm pretty sure they could be said to be the same ink, so maybe it's just a matter of one being much older than the other? On the other hand, some tests of the two inks have shown very different ink properties between them, despite the similarities in colors. I'm not sure what to make of that. 

[ENewton]

I have done no research on this subject but am interested in two of your reflections about Japanese inks:

• That Japanese blacks tend to be neutral to cool in tone
• That Pilot blue-black used to be closer to black than it is now  

When I started studying Japanese calligraphy some years ago, I did some reading about the various types of Sumi ink and learned that there are two major categories:  oil-soot ink, which has a relatively dark, warm color, and the more expensive pine soot ink, which is a subtler black with a bluish cast.  Your question about the influence of Sumi on the concept of black in Japan evokes the thought that both the current Japanese blacks and the older blue-black might gesture toward the qualities of pine-soot ink, as opposed to being attempts to emulate any Western ink.

 

Another question arises from the distinction you make between "the Sumi and carbon inks of Japan."  To my mind, Sumi ink is carbon ink, insofar as it is a mix of soot and animal glue.  It would be interesting to know how different modern Japanese carbon inks are in formulation from Sumi ink.  Presumably, an ink meant for use in a fountain pen does not contain animal glue.  I wonder whether the "carbon" component is typically or always pine soot or oil soot or whether the choice varies.

 

 

[arcfide]

16 hours ago, ENewton said:

• That Pilot blue-black used to be closer to black than it is now  

 

The shift to a more blue-ish Pilot BB occurred when they moved away from an IG base and towards the Cellulose Reactive components. I think the overall design just resulted in an ink that was more blue-ish, and maybe it wasn't worth trying to achieve an exact color match? 

[arcfide]

All of this thinking about trad blacks has made me go on a hunt for my solution to the "one man, one pen, one black ink bottle" configuration. That is, if I were mimicking the old school approach of finding my favorite fountain pen, and then picking up a bottle of ink in my favorite color for that pen that I would then continue to use over a long span of time as my main ink, and that ink that I chose would be the color black, what would be that setup? In the past from my reading there appears to have been a lot of brand loyalty and you read all sorts of stories of people back in the day picking up a Parker 51 or Sheaffer PFM or some other popular pen, picking up a favorite ink, and then using that religiously. So, I explored what that might look like for myself. I generally toyed with the idea of "allowing" the boutique blacks into the picture, but settled on restricting myself to the requirements of the past, which means no boutique specialist colors of excessive prices, but instead, free-flowing dye-based black inks meant to be workhorse type blacks. That yielded a decent selection, and I ended up giving a bunch a try. Here's the ranking I ended up coming up with for myself and my Sailor KOP in Broad, after lots of writing, some blind sample testing against my family and so forth:

1. Sailor Black (Surprisingly good)
2. Herbin Perle Noire (Terrific, but flow isn't what I want, and a little too matte)
3. Platinum Dye-based Black (Great black, too expensive)
4. Pilot Black (Liked the price and water resistance, but not the color and flow/feel)
5. Parker Quink Black (I love the story, and it's not as heinous as everyone seems to think, it flows, but not wetly enough to compensate)
6. Waterman Black (Flow not ideal, water resistance not right)
7. Aurora Black (Too expensive and maybe the wrong color, flow, water resistance not right)
8. Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black (Too dry)
9. Lamy Black (Good but not "special")
10. Sheaffer Black (I don't like the color that much or the viscosity)
11. Jackques Herbin Noir Abyssal (Great Black, but too expensive, and not exactly trad black)
12. Iroshizuku Take-sumi (*Great* ink and a family favorite, but not really a trad black)
13. MB Mystery Black (Great Black, but not black, and not really trad black)

A lot of the inks at the bottom are there because they are terrific blacks, but don't really feel like "classic, standard black inks" to me. They're either too rich, too black, too expensive, or something along those lines. They feel more specialist than minimalist to me, almost too extra. Otherwise, on color and ink properties alone, I think the bottom 3 are easily some of the most interesting and fun blacks around. Sheaffer black is, IMO, just not a fun black to use in any sense, as I'm not a big fan of its flow, color, or properties. It's definitely a trad black, but in all the wrong ways for me. The European blacks in the middle were all good, but they don't really "match" the pen. It feels a little anachronistic (which is stupid and silly, I know) to go with them, and they also tend to, IMO, work better out of the European nibs, which seem to be tuned differently. They just don't do it for me. I'm probably being abnormally hard on them, especially Aurora Black. 

 

Waterman and Parker are both among my favorites of the "classic brands" that are still around, even though they have gone through formula changes. I think Parker gets me a little with their sort of industrial but still elegant bottle. I really like the wide mouth on that bottle, and the ink has a good cool tone. If I accept that a trad black isn't aiming for the blackest of all possible blacks, then Quink Black certainly is a nice black, especially at the price. I do, however, feel that the Japanese makers have just managed to produce some of the best inks on the market, especially for their own pens. They just seem to work exceptionally well and have a character to them that suits the pens. And Perle Noire is in there because it has all the good, desirable properties of a trad black while also being very dark with relatively good flow and water resistance for a basic black ink.

 

But when it comes to sitting down and getting to that effortless, minimal, it just works (tm), no fuss, no muss, zero friction/struggle ink in my Sailor pen, I'm somewhat surprised at just how dominant the Sailor Black is in this regard. Yes, there is some bias in the fact that it's the same brand pen and ink, which gives it some brownie points in this little battle. However, unlike some other pens (*cough* Montblanc *cough*) that seem to do just as well with some other inks as they do with their own, the Sailor black ink flows so extremely freely and cleanly out of the pen, leaving such a nice line, without feeling greasy or lubricated like some inks do, and leaves such a surprisingly dark line, that it's hard not to make it the top pick. It was consistently either top 1 or 2 among the ink choices when my family was voting for different black ink colors they liked on various swatches and writing in various conditions, and the bottle is elegant, pretty, functional, but also straightforward. It's well-behaved, water resistant (for a trad black), and wet. 

 

As far as color goes I think Noir Abyssal, Take-sumi, and Mystery Black are all more interesting colors than Sailor Black hands down, but Take-sumi, for instance, has that almost slimy feel it is so lubricating, and Mystery Black is a little *too* interesting. 

 

So, looks like I have my winner, and as a bonus, it comes in cartridges for my travels. 

 

Sailor now occupies probably at least 3 - 4 of my top 10 ink spots, with Platinum being another dominant player.