Old Inks in Your Pens
Many people ask us if they should use old ink and we believe this is another one of those common sense issues! We use 50+ year old ink frequently in new fountain pens and vintage fountain pens with excellent results. Before using old inks, you need to take a few precautions.
Vintage Ink Precautions:
1. Check to make sure there is no sediment, mold or other non-ink substance floating around or in the bottom of the bottle. Solids don’t flow well, keep them in the bottle and out of your pens.
2. Look at the color of the ink, if it has taken on an odd hue that just doesn’t look right – keep the ink in the bottle.
3. Unscrew the lid and take a little sniff, if you notice any unusual odor, screw the lid back on and refrain from using the ink.
Vintage Blue and Blue-Black inks
seem to have survived the years better than other colors of inks and are a pretty good place to start if you’re looking to try vintage inks. Older Sheaffer Skrip, Parker Quink and Carter’s Inks are generally pretty stable inks and we’ve had good results using these.
Never, never, ever use Drafting, Drawing or India Inks
in a fountain pen – these contain shellac which can gum up the insides of a fountain pen quickly. Early iron gall based inks can also be very corrosive to a fountain pen and I urge that you try them out with a dip pen or glass pen instead of a fountain pen.