Red Skrip Find

[Corona688]

So I disappeared off the face of the earth for several years.  Covid has made my life much busier, rather than less.

 

Right before that happened, I made an interesting find at an antique store:  Several bottles of red Skrip, partly full.  I always wanted a red ink to round out my collection!  The bottles are the kind with the built-in inkwell for dip pens.  I promptly forgot about all of this for several years until I found it again in the 2022 spring cleaning.  (I say "spring", but we just got entire feet of snow outside.)

 

I have almost forgotten how to write cursive!  And my dip pen is rusty as anything, but still works.

 

The ink, far from being dried out, seems kind of bleedy.  I wonder if it's original.  The box suggests at a way to test it, if I can find a UV light.

[inkstainedruth]

Nice find!  I like the ink color a lot.  I have a few bottles of vintage Skrip but not that color.  And modern Skrip Red is a little too blood-red a color for me.

BTW -- one of the bottles I do have, which came with the box, had artwork on the box suggesting that the built-in inkwell was not for dip pens so much as it was for the feeder tube on Sheaffer Snorkels.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[bsenn]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

 

BTW -- one of the bottles I do have, which came with the box, had artwork on the box suggesting that the built-in inkwell was not for dip pens so much as it was for the feeder tube on Sheaffer Snorkels.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Also makes it easier to use the last bit of ink at the end of the bottle.

 

[Parker Quink Turquoise]

 I have one bottle left of the Made in Canada Skrip Peacock Blue ink left.It is the same box/bottle as your red ink.Of late ,I have been using it.About still half full.After that is gone, I will use the Peacock Blue Skrip, made in USA bottles that I have.

[irrigger]

Here is a pic of some snorkel instructions that reference using the bottle with the built in reservoir.

 

[amberleadavis]

OH and the old Perm Red will show up under black light!

[thx1138]

Is this much different from the red Skrip from a few years ago?

[welch]

On 5/2/2022 at 7:52 AM, thx1138 said:

Is this much different from the red Skrip from a few years ago?

 

Completely different. Somewhere around 2000, Sheaffer shut down the ink factory in Fort Madison, Iowa, and began making ink in Europe. They reformulated everything. 

 

I used Skrip throughout the 1960s, in these bottles. I think the price was about .25 USD in the early '60s. Canadian prices would have been close to US prices, so the .35 CAD seems like later '60s. 

 

My bottle of Skrip Royal Blue is old enough that the box promises that the Snorkel "Takes the dunk out of filling!". Evidence that Sheaffer and Parker competed for the cleanest filling system with liquid ink...the only kind of ink until ballpoint's with paste ink began to elbow aside "real pens")

 

(By the way, somewhere in Inky Thoughts, Amberlea posted the results of her tests of the miraculous RC-35)

[Brian-McQueen]

On 4/14/2022 at 2:26 PM, inkstainedruth said:

Nice find!  I like the ink color a lot.  I have a few bottles of vintage Skrip but not that color.  And modern Skrip Red is a little too blood-red a color for me.

BTW -- one of the bottles I do have, which came with the box, had artwork on the box suggesting that the built-in inkwell was not for dip pens so much as it was for the feeder tube on Sheaffer Snorkels.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

The Skrip-well actually pre-dates the Snorkel by a few years.  It is just coincidence that it works so well for the Snorkel.

[txomsy]

I have an old (80's? or earlier?) bottle of Sheaffer's red and one of green. Mine hasn't evaporated either and the color is as vivid and eye-shearing as I remember it. A lot brighter than the one in your picture, but that may be an effect of the pic.

 

For normal writing I prefer burgundy/ruby reds, which are somewhat darker, as they do not pop out of the paper so much. Sheaffer red, for me, is a full attention drawer.