WW2 Micro-film Black V-Mail Ink

[Amberjack]

A sealed and full bottle with a box in terrific condition.

 

V-Mail (for you youngsters) was the War Department's way of saving room and weight when shipping correspondence back and forth from our folks deployed overseas during World War 2.

The letter would be written by the sending party on a special form, photographed after passing the censors and recorded on micro-film. 

When it arrived at the destination, the letter would be printed out again for the receiver to read.

The problem was that some inks didn't pick up well under the camera - hence the extra-carbon content of 'Micro-film black that you see here.

 

Parker only made the red white and blue box during and around the war years.

[zmija]

Very nice bottle!

[inkstainedruth]

I have a bottle of that (or at least a partial bottle).  The box mine is in isn't just red, white and blue though -- the top of my box is black (not just the strip around the top edges that says "MICRO-FILM BLACK" on the sides of the box).  And looking at the box just now, realized that one side isn't in English (I typed part of the text: "Negra Fija Especial" into Google Translate, and that side of the box apparently has the text in Spanish!) I've run across a number of that style bottles of various colors of vintage Quink over the years (besides the Microfilm Black I have Permanent Royal Blue, Permanent Blue-Black, both Permanent Brown and Washable Brown, and Washable Violet).  Plus, a few years ago, I found a mostly full pint bottle of vintage Permanent Violet on eBay for a really good price (and eventually transferred the contents into smaller eyedropper bottles that are opaque (even though they're also in a box with a lid).

I also have a couple of bottles of Sheaffer's equivalent -- Skrip V-Black. 

I'm kinda amazed that even though those bottles date to the 1940s, the ink in them is still good (no mold or separation or anything else "bad"); and I've got the Quink Permanent Blue-Black in a Parker 45 at the moment.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth