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Ha ha - indeed -If so you better start on writing the biggest novel ever.
Good idea, I was thinking about the purchase of a dip pen at some point.Or a cheap dip pen with various nibs?
How many words can you get down on paper between dips?Ha ha - indeed -
''Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world."
or -
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness."
- I.
@BigBruce - I have dip pens - they are lovely things to use - but not the most practical - they slow your writing down to the pace of a medieval scribe. Nothing inherently wrong with that - but it'll take a week to write a three page letter.
I went to an old fashioned country primary school and that is what we had to use initially!Good idea, I was thinking about the purchase of a dip pen at some point.
Paul.
Happy days !I went to an old fashioned country primary school and that is what we had to use initially!
The school administrators were in league with the school uniform outfitters!Cracking find I but what bright spark thought it a good idea to have primary kids using permanent ink, I can only imagine the mess and ruined school uniforms.
Snap! (sort of)View attachment 70246
Waterman vintage ink.
Provenance - It was rescued from the store cupboard of a primary school in North Lanarkshire that was being demolished in the mid-nineties. It ended up in an artefact collection that my partner curated. She saved it from a skip when the council shut the service down. It was new and unopened until last week - the rubber seal was intact and not perished.
Dating - This was surprisingly hard - given the vastness of t'interweb but initially the best clues were the label and bottle. I could find very little hard and fast information - if anyone knows better I'd be delighted to hear from them. This size was primarily supplied to educational users - it would have sat on the teacher's desk and been used to fill up the inkwells in the desks of pupils. Initially I discovered, due to the style of label and the bottle design - art deco - it cannot be later than the early 50's - Waterman changed all their packaging at this point. What is also unusual is that it was made in England - the vast majority of Waterman ink was made in the USA or Canada - but the reason for this becomes more obvious later. Upon further examination of the bottle I found a code on the underside that indicates that it was packaged in January 1940! It is probably around 81 years old. The empty bottles - due to the deco design - change hands around $100 - people make lamps out of them for a period look.
Usability - We opened it and did a swab test - it is in perfect condition - no mould and no separation. The shading is amazing compared to modern ink but the clue is in the description 'permanent' on the label. It is iron gall ink - and indeed it is permanent - I ran water over a sample when it was dry and nothing shifted - no run, no smudging. The down side of this - as to writing with it - is that ink of this type is - relatively - very acidic, so will corrode a modern pen from the inside out. A gold or rhodium nib won't be affected but the ink supply mechanism won't be made from these materials. The ink looks just blue when wet but if you leave it 24 hours it starts to oxidise and it darkens considerably - a proper blue/black.
@Blademonkey and myself were thinking it might be quite cool to write with it - that is after all what ink is for - the best solution might be to get a couple of cheap Chinese fountain pens and it doesn't really matter if the ink ruins them. We'll take one for the team and see what happens.
I though this was a nice find - it is remarkable it has survived this long - yours - I.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a Dipping pen?
You had better call it B1617.2 inkHas anyone tried India Ink?
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