I tried writing with vintage ink.
I tried writing with vintage ink.
Found this bottle of Sheaffer Skrip Ink Jet Black ink in the house. It's probably 20+ years old but no clue from what time exactly.
Has a thin metal cap, it's all crusty on the threads.
The inside has an ink well made from glass.
This is the angriest ink I have ever seen.
Following two pictures are done on Claire Fontaine paper. Usually you can leave whole pools of ink to dry on it without it getting through the surface. But this ink burned right through!
back:
Small writing test. The ink is so fluid that it overfills the feed. If I don't absorb the excess with tissue every 20 seconds whole droplets will spill onto the paper. I don't know if it was always like this or if it's because it has been sitting there for decades.
Small drawing test. The ink is feathering which other inks usually doesn't do on this sketchbook.
Washing nib in water reveals red undertones. Could also be seen in the bottle images.
Pen used for testing: FPR Indus with ultra flex nib.
Cool experiment! Wonder if anyone has any experience using this ink back in the day to compare.
I love the Miffy goes to Isengard drawing.
Thank you. The building behind Miffy ("Nijntje") is the Dom Tower in Utrecht. It is the hometown of Miffy's author Dick Bruna, as well as mine :)
I haven't used Skrip in a long time, but this sort of tracks with what I recall about fresher bottles or the "true cylinder" old-school cartridges. Good color, but very thin and liable to bleed through anything. I think the idea was to make it fairly easy on pens despite the saturated color.
I really like the design of that ink. You don't see much yellow packaging nowadays.
Wow 20 years old, so cool to see ink from the 70s/80s....... wait.
I have three bottles of this: black, blue and peacock blue. Peacock blue is fantastic with dip pens and I have a Delta pen filled with it. I bought them in 1990, so 34 years ago.
Ah, nice to know when you got them!
Might be containing lead.....
Yep, you never know what kind of wild stuff they threw in back then. By the same reasoning, 30 years from now we will be saying "I can't believe they really put xxx in yyy".