What Happened To Solv-x?

[welch]

Why did Parker remove Solv-X from Quink? Health risk to people making the ink?

[Joane]

I wondered about that too. I always loved seeing "Solv-X" on the label. It made the ink sound so industrious, like it was working extra hard.

Edited November 16, 2010 by Joane

[Fuddlestack]

I remember Quink with Solv-X, but what was the stuff anyway? There's a company in Alberta called Solv.X that makes chemical toilets... the mind boggles.

[Joane]

I remember Quink with Solv-X, but what was the stuff anyway? There's a company in Alberta called Solv.X that makes chemical toilets... the mind boggles.

All I know is the ink was purported to clean your pen as you wrote. It was obviously some kind of solvent but dissolving what?

[tonybelding]

We've debated before what Solv-X actually was, and the issue was never definitively settled, but the main candidates seem to be phenol, i.e. carbolic acid or Triton X-100.

[Sandy1]

Hi,

 

I think one must realise that there's no requirement for listing ink ingredients on the label.

In fact, some bottles do not even have the word 'ink' on the label. (?!!?)

 

When I've reviewed recently re-released/packaged Parker Quink and Montblanc inks, I mentioned that just because the word 'SOLV-X' or 'SuperCleaner 22' or 'Agent X' does not appear on the label does not mean that the ingredient (or a new equivalent) is not in the formula.

 

IMHO, one can only go the the Safety sheet in an attempt to detect (by inference or deduction) what's in the ink.

 

BTW - how did MBRG get into the thread??

 

Bye,

S1

Edited November 16, 2010 by Sandy1

[saintsimon]

... but dissolving what?

The money stuck in your purse.

Edited November 16, 2010 by saintsimon

[tonybelding]

I think one must realise that there's no requirement for listing ink ingredients on the label.

In fact, some bottles to not even have the word 'ink' on the label. (?!!?)

 

Such as Skrip "Writing Fluid", the successor to ink! :roflmho:

[mikey]

...In fact, some bottles to not even have the word 'ink' on the label. (?!!?)

 

Such as Skrip "Writing Fluid", the successor to ink! :roflmho:

 

Just another case of political correctness run amok. No?

[Trebster]

...In fact, some bottles to not even have the word 'ink' on the label. (?!!?)

 

Such as Skrip "Writing Fluid", the successor to ink! :roflmho:

 

Just another case of political correctness run amok. No?

 

All marketing, pure and simple. "I never use Tiger Brand coffee because it doesn't have Zest Appeal !"

 

Of course these days our cultures are too ethically evolved to use product marketing for ink (or anything else), and if there were, we'd certainly be smart enough to recognize it and call a spade a spade! :roflmho:

[WendyNC]

I have an old bottle of black Quink with Solv-X--nasty, cloggy stuff and was from the get-go. Anyway, if somebody wants to do a chemical analysis on it, I'll be happy to send a sample. Really.

Edited November 17, 2010 by WendyNC

[Ignatian]

I remember the very distinctive smell of the ink. Chemical to be sure, but it transports me back to my days as a schoolboy in London in the 60's. I absolutely love it. I still have half a bottle of the stuff. I don't use it...i just open up the bottle every now and again for a trip down memory lane...

 

Whenever I'm in a pen store I always smell the inks in the vain hope of finding one like the old Quink. Needless to say, the clerk always gives me strange looks.

Edited November 18, 2010 by Ignatian

[SamCapote]

I decided to look at my bottle of black Quink with Solv-X, which is in good shape after all these years. Now that I have been working with Phenol in my Biocide testing thread, I have no question that there is Phenol in this Solv-X Quink. The smell is unmistakeable. There may be other things in it also, but one of them in Phenol.

 

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/Inks/Quinks.jpg

[corniche]

Greetings all,

 

According to old company ads, Parker released Solv-X in 1943, it was designed to save pens from "ink related failures," especially since metal and rubber replacement parts were almost impossible to find, (wartime rationing of metal, rubber, petrol, food, etc.- for you youngsters or those ignorant of 20th. Century history). "Solv-X eliminates gummy deposits and helps ink flow"- it was also pH balanced because "high acid inks ruined pens!" (Yes, they were concerned about pH as far back as '43, but they didn't refer to pH- too technical for the times, I guess).

 

All the best,

 

Sean

Edited November 18, 2010 by S. P. Colfer

[welch]

...but when and why was Solv-X removed? I mentioned MB BRG because we had a thread in which someone explained that EU health and safety regulations sometimes require a company to demonstrate that a product is safe; someone speculated (and it seemed reasonable) that MB sold so little BRG that it was not worth the trouble to file all he papers.

 

Now to Solv-X: I suspect we'll never know, not with certainty, what it was until that great day when Newell Sanford Parker releases some of their archived "secrets". We know that it was a magical chemical that cleaned a pen as it wrote. Reading that advertising blurb was just as sothing as reading that Sheaffer Skrip Writing Fluid ("the successor to ink" because Skrip was supposed to be better than ink) had a mysterious component RC-35, or someothing like that. Acording to Sheaffer, you could read the mysterious tracings of RC35 no matter what happened to the "writing fluid". In the happily innocent old days, we used to assume that Sheaffer Skip left a radioactive trace that could be reconsttructed with a geiger counter.

 

Still, when and why did Parker stop boasting that it had Solv-X in its ink?

[corniche]

Greetings Welch,

 

Being a business man myself, I'll tell you this much; it was removed for one of four reasons:

 

1. It cost too much, (commodities mkt.), to keep including it.

2. Government regulatons banned it's use.

3. It was ineffectual and it's curative properties could not be empirically proven and it had to be removed to comply with revised advertising regulations.

4. It no longer resonated with focus groups

 

Have you ever written to Parker's, (Newell Rubbermaid), Public Relations Dpt. and asked them about it?

 

All the best,

 

Sean

Edited November 18, 2010 by S. P. Colfer

[Joane]

I was just thinking, for all we know, Solv-X may still be in there. They might have just taken that off the label to update the bottle to a more modern look.

[corniche]

I was just thinking, for all we know, Solv-X may still be in there. They might have just taken that off the label to update the bottle to a more modern look.

 

Hello Joane,

 

You may be right- there are people here who still swear that using Parker ink cleans their pens; Parker may of stopped using the Solv-X name because it sounded "corny." OTOH, I can't believe if Parker ink had any "curative" properties, they would not try to market this to the hilt.

 

All the best,

 

Sean

[Mr Ink]

I remember the very distinctive smell of the ink. I absolutely love it. Whenever I'm in a pen store I always smell the inks in the vain hope of finding one like the old Quink. Needless to say, the clerk always gives me strange looks.

 

Oh thank goodness....I'm not the only one who does that! :ltcapd:

[AlanE]

I have several bottles of Quink new and old and they all seem to smell the same, the bottle of washable blue (with Solv X) smells the strongest. Maybe as already suggested Solvent X sounds too corny for these times.

 

Alan