Inks in the 19th century.

[Shangas]

About a month ago now, I stopped in at Melbourne Vintage Pens and I left with Da Book and an old calligraphy set. In this set was a packet of powdered ink. I was looking at another pen site today and I was looking at all these old ink-bottles and this has made me wonder a lot of things. Those things are...

 

- When was it started, that ink was sold commercially in little bottles (like we know today?)

- Was it more common (in the 19th century) just to get a tin or a bottle or...whatever...of ink-powder, measure it out and add water instead?

- What are the names of some of the really old ink companies? (I keep hearing about Carter's ink. When did that come into existence?). When did they start producing and selling ink?

- Was ink just 'generic' in the 19th century? As in there was ONE type of black ink, like how there's one type of iron-gall ink? Unlike today where there's this massive variety and even black varies from company to company, bottle to bottle?

 

Hope you guys can answer these questions! Hope they're easy to understand

[Deirdre]

Ink's been around in a number of colors for a long, long time. The scribe hieroglyph (sesh) from medu neter (middle Egyptian) shows an inkwell in top-down perspective with red and black inkwells and a pen holder. Escribient's avatar shows that hieroglyph pretty well.

 

As far as the 19th century goes, Diamine goes back to 1864.

[JeffB]

You will find more than you want to know in this document:

 

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/boo...sofink/toc.html

[Romeo Dog]

A lot of people made their own iron gall ink.

[Shangas]

You will find more than you want to know in this document:

 

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/boo...sofink/toc.html

 

Ah-hah! Perfect! Thanks Jeff.

[Paddler]

Back in 1967, my grandmother moved out of her old house in Ohio and, before she sold it, she gave me pillaging rights. The house started life as a stagecoach stop and inn back in the early 1800s. I dug a stoneware ink bottle out of the dirt floor in the cellar. The bottle holds about a quart. It was made by Joseph Bourne & Son Pottery, Denby, England. It was made for P. & J. Arnold of London, Ink Products. The cartouche imprinted on the side of the bottle dates to the 1850s. The manufacturer denied the product was ink; it was rightfully called "writing fluid". It was iron gall ink, mixed with a purple liquid (indigo?) so you could read what you wrote before it oxidized to black. The bottle was used as the "master bottle" in schools and was used to fill the inkwells in students' desks. By the time I dug it up, the paper label had rotted away and there was no identifiable ink residue inside.

 

Paddler

 

 

[scribe75]

In my family, there is lore that a forbear, one James S. Mason, manufactured ink in Philadephia in the US during the mid to late 19th century. The ink bottles are rare and hard to find now (still searching for the several kinds I know are out there). Anyway, the "carbon black" used to make the ink, or writing fluid, was taken from the soot of gas street lamps when cleaned. Think of it as a re-cycling effort 100 years before it was fashionable (I'm thinking back to the Earth Day in 1970).

 

Anyway, the family lore that I recall is that Mr. Mason either had workers in his employ or "got " the carbon black from those who cleaned the smudged street lamps. In the process of cleaning the lamps, they collected the soot. The soot was then mixed in the factory to make ink - one color - you could "have any color you wanted, so long as it was black" (thank you Henry Ford). It was sold in small individual bottles and in larger (like the "cathedral" type) bottles. I believe purchasers were mainly printing presses, though the smaller bottles make me think there was an individual retail business too (schools, businesses, and individuals). Prior to the US Civil War, the company manufactured boot blacking from the same soot. The boot blacking business preceded the ink manufacture.

 

I will read the book now that is previously mentioned in this thread and see how it compares. None of this is factual; it is all lore. Hope it answers your question in some way.

[RitaCarbon]

Where can I get that Carbon Black?

[dcwaites]

Where can I get that Carbon Black?

Somewhere I got the notion that it is used for making car tyres.

 

Every now and then I see giant (and I mean huge trucks (B-Doubles, Semi Trailers with a second trailer) with very high special trailers full of carbon black. My guess is that each trailer contains 20-30 tons of carbon black. This is probably more than you want.

 

I hope you are not considering putting it in your fountain pen? It will clog it up.

 

The closest you can get for pens is India Ink, which is usually made with carbon black and possibly shellac. This will definitely kill your fountain pen, but it works well in, and is made for, dip nibs.

 

You can get small amounts by allowing the soot from a smoky flame to collect on a ceramic surface. The easiest way is to have a too long wick burning kerosene with limited air, such as a hurricane lamp with the wick wound out too far. The kerosene won't burn properly, and will generate a black, sooty smoke.

 

 

[DavidCampen]

Where can I get that Carbon Black?

Yes, it is produced and used in large quantities in all sorts of products including paints. If you wanted a pallet of 50 pound bags that would be easy; the hard part will be finding it in small lots.

 

http://w1.cabot-corp.com/controller.jsp?en...4294967225+1000

[encephalartos]

Where can I get that Carbon Black?

Yes, it is produced and used in large quantities in all sorts of products including paints. If you wanted a pallet of 50 pound bags that would be easy; the hard part will be finding it in small lots.

 

http://w1.cabot-corp.com/controller.jsp?en...4294967225+1000

 

It's the pigment in paints that are called "Lamp Black", watercolor, acrylic,

or oils. It might be used in printers ink as well. An alternate black pigment

is called "Ivory Black", which comes from carbonized bones. I'm not sure

which one is used to make India Ink (dip pen drawing) or technical drawing

ink (also permanent, black, India-type ink, though maybe a bit thinner so

it goes through thin stylographic pen tubes with a wire in the middle.)

[Chris]

You could make your own! I do remember using a smoky flame to coat a sheet of paper in soot to use as a "chart paper" in days of yore for science experiments. After making the traces (with straws and pins and plastacene (sp?)), they were varnished to preserve them.

 

I expect a smokey candle and a glass surface would provide penty of lamp black or soot, but I think I'd simply buy a bottle of Pelikan India Ink for dip pens.

 

Chris

 

edit: yore not your!

Edited April 11, 2008 by Chris

[Shangas]

As I understand it, most black inks of the early kind were just water and ash/soot mixed together.

[JDlugosz]

Where can I get that Carbon Black?

 

Burn a piece of cotton to ash, grind the ash to fine power. That is how you make India Ink.

[Lozzic]

If you want to make a matt black carbon based ink of the sort that could have been used anywhere from Ancient Egypt, to Leonardo da Vinci's studio, to the Golden Age of American Penmanship and that is suitable for dip pens NOT fountain pens then do the following:

 

Take a small glass jar or some such, measure up some very finely ground soot/Carbon at about 6 parts and place it in this jar. Take liquid Gum Arabic and put about 2 parts in with the Carbon, make sure to keep stirring it well. You cannot make this ink recipe with water as the Carbon will not make a suspension within the water, it will simply refuse to mix. As you add Gum Arabic it will clog up in to a gooey lump so keep adding it until you are at the 2 parts, if it stays gooey after a lot of stirring add more until you feel that the gooey lump has gone, do not add too much! After this you will want to add an acid, with mine I added a few drops of vinegar, Lime or Lemon juice; vinegar is probably the best preservative but it doesn't exactly give a pleasant smell to the bottle (not that lemon or lime gives a smell at all), though I would recommend it.

As with all inks like this it may require fine tuning to get it work how you want it to, so don't be disappointed if it doesn't write how you expected, simply keep working at it.

 

This recipe is only suitable for dip pens as the carbon will completely clog up a fountain pen. It dries matt black, if anyone has ever used Ziller soot black ink it is very similar to that but you will never manage to get the Carbon particles as fine as they do. it requires frequent stirring when in use. It seems to work with flexible and pointed pens but I find that hairlines don't work to well so you are probably best off with a broad pen.

 

Enjoy

Edited May 11, 2008 by Lozzic

[psfred]

Iron gall and carbon black inks have been around for a very long time (the Egyptians used them) along with other pigmented inks.

 

Fountain pen ink as we know it came around about the same time as the discovery of aniline dyes, mid to late 1800's, and examples have been found dating back to at least the Civil War, I think. There were many other inks around before then, as anything that stains makes a good temporary ink (pokeberry juice, walnut hull extract, logwood extract, and so forth). Most are rather ephemeral, though, and used only for things where permanence wasn't needed -- they would be gone in a year to two. Indigo was probably not used as a fountain pen ink -- use as a dye isn't straight-forward, as the dye moiety isn't soluble in water at normal pH.

 

 

Peter

[AndrewW]

I saw a brief feature on The One Show the other week where they showed the old specimen signature book from Coutts' Bank, together with some historic cheques. They particularly showed samples of Charles Dickens (b. 1812, d. 1870) and I am positive that one of his signatures was in turquoise ink. It certainly looked like a colour in that sort of range.

[mnpd]

I'm late seeing this thread, but Carbon Black is easily found in small quantities.... fingerprint powder. Several companies sell crime scene supplies on the Internet. Just make sure you get the NON-magnetic powder designed for use with the fiberglass brush. The magnetic stuff is filled with iron filings.

[Daosus]

Japanese and Chinese calligraphy traditionally use carbon-black inks. The Japanese variety tends to be more consistent and is called "Sumi Ink." It comes in bottles or sticks. The sticks traditional way of preparing the ink is to take the stick and rub it on a stone with a well for water. The ink particles then mix with the water and you have ink! How long you rub controls how dark and how viscous the ink is. The sticks are already pre-mixed with a binder and a thickener, but if you need a thicker ink, you can add gum arabic.

[donwinn]

Sailor has a carbon ink, as does Platinum, both of which are claimed to be suitable for use with fountain pens. I believe the Sailor Kiwaguro has been reviewed in FPN, as has the Platinum.

 

Donnie