Fraud Resistant?

[Wilson Hines]

My wife says I am niave. I just don't go around looking for opportunities to defruad people.

 

Can somebody explain to me why an ink needs to claim it is fraud resistant and then please explain how somebody would defraud me and my trusty pen?

 

Thanks

[Verbose]

I think fraud resistant ink is ink that can't be washed off the paper. Noodler's Bullet Proof Black should do just fine.

[bluemagister]

Noodler's fraud resistance isn't a claim, it's a fact.

 

Check washing is not possible if using Noodler's or gel inks.

[Pippin60]

It's so forgers can't alter the amounts or signatures on legal documents and checks. Ultimate ink is an iron gall ink like Diamine Registrar or Mont blanc blue black (bottle not cartridge) I would not recommend it for any pen with a steel nib. Also of course any Noodeler's bullet proof inks, but take note; not all Noodler's inks are bullet proof, some are just water resistant and a few not much different than any other ink. I use Diamine registrar's ink for signing documents and for correspondence having learned the hard way that an envelope can be exposed to water.

[Wilson Hines]

Thanks for the timely responses.

 

Pippin you say the iron gall inks, such as the Diamine Registrar is bad for steel nibs. What other kind are there, 24 and 14K? I have a Lamy Studio bi-color, meaning it's half steel and half gold. While reading the Goulet page for the Diamine R and Dave's review, I saw all of this about the corrosiveness. Should I not use the Registrar in my Lamy? I think that ink sounds like a winner!

[Wilson Hines]

And by the way, I currently only have two bottles of Private Reserve and then a bottle of Conklin. The reviewI mentioned said that PR compared to the makeup of the Registrar?? Do I need to worry about my Private Reserve?

[Astrea]

I too am curious...Lamy produces their own blue black iron-gall ink, which I've been using with my Lamy Vista with no problems (as of yet!) Should I not be doing that?

[Northwoods]

First, iron-gall inks are not fraud proof. They have good water resistance, but they would not be immune to chemical attack. Second, modern iron-gall ink is as safe as any of the medium maintenance inks. These are not the home made inks that were far more acidic that they needed to be. These are made for fountain pens. Flush out your pen regularly, and you're good to go.

[gillyohan]

modern iron gall inks in pens w/ steel nibs is fine. no worries. you don't want to leave it sitting in a steel-nibbed pen for a year, but flushing it every few months is more than sufficient. I have never seen any problems using Lamy Blue-Black (bottled), which is iron gall, in my Safari pens. Great inks w/ great characteristics.

 

that said, i don't know how fraud-proof I would consider modern iron gall inks. I would feel more secure using a Noodlers warden series (like bad blue heron), if security was a big concern for me.

[dcwaites]

Second that. Iron-gall inks can be washed out with bleach.

 

Noodler's Bulletproof inks bond themselves chemically to the cellulose fibres in the paper. You cannot remove them without destroying the fibres. However, the original Bulletproof inks may have been susceptible to being 'bleached' by certain laser light. Consequently Nathan came up with the Wardens series of inks which are resistant to that attack as well.

 

A Fraud-resistant ink may not be absolutely invincible. Some are designed to change colour when attacked with chemicals, and hence show that some attempt has been made to change what has been written.

 

Another class of inks are those that could be classed as 'archival'. These are inks that will not fade with time, or with exposure to 'normal' chemicals such as water or alcohol. These inks can be used with confidence on documents that should last hundreds of years, like museum labels. The only inks that fit this category are the carbon-based inks like India ink. Current makers of FP friendly versions of carbon inks are Sailor, Pelikan, Pilot and Hero.

 

Good, modern versions of iron-gall inks (like those made by Diamine, Rohrer & Klinger, Lamy and Mont Blanc) are archival so long as they are stored away from light and bleach. These are inks that are suitable for long-term documents like mortgages, wedding certificates and international treaties.

 

We don't know, because they haven't been tested, how long-term the Noodler's Bulletproof, Eternal and Wardens inks are. This is not a criticism, just a fact. It costs a lot of money to get inks tested and certified by a laboratory. I imagine that Nathan has decided that it is not commercially viable for him to get any of his inks certified (i.e. the extra sales due to certification wouldn't make up for the cost of certification).

 

The only fountain pen ink I know of that has been is De Atramentis Permanent ink, which has been certified to ISO 12757-2. However, that ink is more than twice the price of the other De Atramentis inks. It is over $1/ml.

[dcwaites]

Don't forget, people, that when we talk about iron-gall inks and steel nibs, we are talking about plain steel nibs, like dip nibs, and perhaps early 20th century FP nibs.

All the modern fountain pens I know of with 'steel' nibs are actually using stainless steel, which is much more resistant to any sort of corrosion. I am quite happy to use a modern iron-gall ink in pens like Lamy Safari, Platinum Preppy, Parker 45 and the like.

 

 

[Astrea]

Don't forget, people, that when we talk about iron-gall inks and steel nibs, we are talking about plain steel nibs, like dip nibs, and perhaps early 20th century FP nibs.

All the modern fountain pens I know of with 'steel' nibs are actually using stainless steel, which is much more resistant to any sort of corrosion. I am quite happy to use a modern iron-gall ink in pens like Lamy Safari, Platinum Preppy, Parker 45 and the like.

 

Ah, that's good to hear. I figured Lamy wouldn't produce ink that couldn't be used in their own pens!

[Wilson Hines]

Don't forget, people, that when we talk about iron-gall inks and steel nibs, we are talking about plain steel nibs, like dip nibs, and perhaps early 20th century FP nibs.

All the modern fountain pens I know of with 'steel' nibs are actually using stainless steel, which is much more resistant to any sort of corrosion. I am quite happy to use a modern iron-gall ink in pens like Lamy Safari, Platinum Preppy, Parker 45 and the like.

 

Ah, that's good to hear. I figured Lamy wouldn't produce ink that couldn't be used in their own pens!

 

Thanks again for these fantastic responses to our questions.

 

A normal ink, like my Private Reserve Avocado or Spearmint, how long will they stand up? If I am using Rhodia paper for journaling, how many years should I expect to have no fading issues? 20 years or 2 generations? Any idea?

[Yoda4561]

 

Thanks again for these fantastic responses to our questions.

 

A normal ink, like my Private Reserve Avocado or Spearmint, how long will they stand up? If I am using Rhodia paper for journaling, how many years should I expect to have no fading issues? 20 years or 2 generations? Any idea?

 

 

 

Hard to say. The best way to find out is by using accelerated aging tests, you can find some home brewed versions on FPN where folks have left writing samples of various inks in a window along with a control set stored in a dark place to see how they faded. I can say that Pilot Rollerball ink in the color Blue will fade to nothingness after 10 years in a closed notebook stored indoors. All the notes I took in college with a Pilot V5 and V7 in blue ink are unreadable now. I've seen a few ballpoint notes that are kind of fadey too.

 

Some FP inks hold up VERY well to accelerated sunlight aging, it's not a guarantee of longetivity but still a useful tool. Like in my closed notebook samples no light was involved. Paper/ink pH, ozone, a number of things can also destroy writing over time.

Edited October 17, 2010 by Yoda4561

[Wilson Hines]

 

Thanks again for these fantastic responses to our questions.

 

A normal ink, like my Private Reserve Avocado or Spearmint, how long will they stand up? If I am using Rhodia paper for journaling, how many years should I expect to have no fading issues? 20 years or 2 generations? Any idea?

 

 

 

Hard to say. The best way to find out is by using accelerated aging tests, you can find some home brewed versions on FPN where folks have left writing samples of various inks in a window along with a control set stored in a dark place to see how they faded. I can say that Pilot Rollerball ink in the color Blue will fade to nothingness after 10 years in a closed notebook stored indoors. All the notes I took in college with a Pilot V5 and V7 in blue ink are unreadable now. I've seen a few ballpoint notes that are kind of fadey too.

 

Some FP inks hold up VERY well to accelerated sunlight aging, it's not a guarantee of longetivity but still a useful tool. Like in my closed notebook samples no light was involved. Paper/ink pH, ozone, a number of things can also destroy writing over time.

 

I've seen the notebook problem, no question. I can't remember what kind of pen it was I used in college back in the early to mid 90's, but I think they were Pilots. About a month ago, I started going through my old notebooks and throwing away the mess. I thought I would use some of it and I just never have; I think there's one notebook of which I saved half, because I have referred back to it. I was amazed at what little I could read clearly. All was readable to some degree, but very little was very readable.

[mstone]

Noodler's fraud resistance isn't a claim, it's a fact.

 

Check washing is not possible if using Noodler's or gel inks.

Neither all Noodler's nor all gel inks are equally fraud-resistant.

[Ipno Tizer]

modern iron gall inks in pens w/ steel nibs is fine. no worries. you don't want to leave it sitting in a steel-nibbed pen for a year, but flushing it every few months is more than sufficient. I have never seen any problems using Lamy Blue-Black (bottled), which is iron gall, in my Safari pens. Great inks w/ great characteristics.

 

that said, i don't know how fraud-proof I would consider modern iron gall inks. I would feel more secure using a Noodlers warden series (like bad blue heron), if security was a big concern for me.

 

Iron gall is not bleach resistant so for signing cheques there remains at least the theoretical wisk that they could be altered. But cheques in my chequebook have a background design that washes out in water. So if anyone tried to wash or bleach the cheque it would imediately void the payment. I think this is a legal requirement in the European Union but I'd imagine cheques in the US would have similar anti fraud features.

 

So even normal fountain pen ink is same enough for cheques, but I think the banks prefer reasoably permanent ink. So I'd use my iron gall. Obviously this doesn't apply to plain paper documents, but most banks in the UK are happy with ballpen for signing contracts. So if ballpen is acceptable the same shold be true of iron gall.

 

Chris B.

[Fuddlestack]

Re making cheques fraud resistant, the best trick I have seen is to put a strip of transparent adhesive tape over the amount and the name of the payee. One of our clients used to do this before he switched to bank transfers, and the cheques went through with no problems. This might confuse optical readers, but character recognition from handwriting is so iffy anyway I doubt if it's an issue.

[Northwoods]

Ironically, people are are concerned with fraud often make sure that they sign with an fraud resistant ink, when logically, having everything on the check except the signature be permanent makes more sense. It would make the one thing that could be removed be the thing most likely to make the check useless.

[welch]

It has been a long time since crooks practiced the "check washing" and such that some ink makers promise to block with their "fraud resistant" inks.

 

- Fewer Americans write personal checks now, although the paper check has not disappeared as fast as we predicted 20 years ago. Checks are, however, rare enough that my European colleagues had no idea why we, in the US market, wanted to prepare for Check21, also known as "Check Processing for the 21st Century".

 

- Check fraud happens when people scan government checks and cash them at check-cashing stores. That's the big business in "check fraud", and "fraud resistant ink" will not stop someone from stealing a social security check out of a mailbox. For details, see the recent speech by Jim Freis, director of the US Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/speech/html/20101002.html.

 

- No crook bothers to alter a signature on a contract, because each party signs many copies of a contract, and both sides usually digitize the results and shred the originals. Nobody wants to store that much paper.

 

- I suspect that "check washing" and such are imaginary threats used to sell more ink.

 

[Note: if you worry about accidentally spilling a cup of coffee, then, of course, take precautions.]