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My father recently gifted me with an ancient Sheaffer Lifetime fountain pen. As you can see from the photos, the sack became brittle and burst. I would like to know whether it is worth trying to replace the sack and make the pen usable again, or whether I should put it back together and leave it in the past where it belongs. (With apologies for the huge image. I attempted to resize the image, but the forum broke my BBCode.) Detailed images: The three pieces in close to their correct color The sad pieces and sack remains Nib detail in grayscale Inside of body showing lever. Nib section held in hand showing where sack attached.

For high-res photos, feel free to visit to my blog. Diamine Ancient Copper is an unusual ink. In terms of colour richness/saturation, you are effectively presented with two very different experiences - all depends on the pen you are using. If you use a fine or medium nib, you get more or less a light brown, not very saturated and quite a bland colour that does not stand out much and may be difficult to read. However, the broader the nib, the more exciting it gets. With a broad or a stub nib (tried with Vintage Parker Duofold stub and TWSBI 580 1.1 italic) the ink really shines. The richness of the copper colour comes across very clearly, it is saturated, beautiful and fresh. Drying times are not very good (but that’s not unusual for Diamine inks), but it does not feather and there was hardly any bleedthrough at all which is always nice. Overall summary: It’s a great, well behaved, but rather slow drying ink for people who write with broad(er) nibs, but you may be disappointed if you use M/F/EF nibs as it is not saturated enough to stand out. Paper: Rhodia A4 notebook (90g)Pens: Montblanc Boheme (M nib) and Pilot Parallel (6mm nib)Water test: drops left on the paper for 1 minute