Pelikan 4001 Blue Black Question

[grainweevil]

My previous purchase of blue-black was in 2012. All bottles came in the old packaging (dark blue with the light blue puddle) and all were good. The date codes on the boxes were all 202, except one marked 111. It looks like Pelikan recently changed the way they date code things from a 3 digit number to an alphanumeric system. I am guessing that the first digit is the last digit of the year and the next two correspond to the month. So 202 = February 2012 and 111 = November 2011. If so, 301 would be January 2013.

 

Ah, you have more data points to work from - that sounds a very plausible interpretation, thank you.

[lapis]

Mine are all in the puddled box. Latest bb is March 2012 and still struggling along fine.

Are you saying that any bad guys have to be in the new boxes?

 

Mike

[tinta]

For some unknown reason I decided to collapse my last two bottles (from Cult) of 4001 b/b & put it away.

I normally trash all pen & ink boxes.

Now I found the boxes with a 14H for the big bottle & 15C for the small.

Wonder what these numbers signify? 14 for 2014? 15 for 2015? What about the letters?

What are the bad batches then?

[lapis]

If it's now time to guess, I'd say 14 is for 2014 and H is for August (H = 8th letter in the alphabet)...

[white_lotus]

Just curious, where are the 14F etc...... numbers to be found on the 4001 b/b bottles? Of the three bottles I have, one is in use & a 62.5ml & 30 ml.in reserve.

 

Not on the bottle, but on the box. Mine is on the front of the flap at the top of the box.

[lapis]

Hmmm.... mine (the flap I bought in March 2012) says 111 (stamped in as an impregnation)...

[tinta]

Haugust,...you say? Hmm........

[dcwaites]

 

Hi,

 

As I abstain from alcohol, yet appreciate its ritual value, a cartridge-size 1ml serving of spiritous liquor would be enough to wet my lips for occasions such as baptisms, weddings, wakes, etc.

 

Can I drizzle it onto my lips from a P99 Technixx and still kiss the Bride?

 

Bye,

S1

 

You kiss the Groom M'Lady, and I'll kiss the Bride.

 

On a completely different matter, but related to your volumes of spirituous liquors, I wonder if there would be a market for 5 ml sample vials of good Aussie wines and spirits? Except for Corio. That's a dark secret we must keep within Aus.

[Sasha Royale]

Pelikan 4001 blue-black is a very useful, well-behaved ink that I use in all my vintage lever-fill pens. It is currently serving well in an American lever-filler with a fine nib. Blue-black dries and ages to a gray-green color. The current bottle is old, and it seems that the color is lighter than ink from a new bottle.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Sasha Royale

[Sandy1]

 

You kiss the Groom M'Lady, and I'll kiss the Bride.

 

On a completely different matter, but related to your volumes of spirituous liquors, I wonder if there would be a market for 5 ml sample vials of good Aussie wines and spirits? Except for Corio. That's a dark secret we must keep within Aus.

 

Hi,

 

I would never kiss or flirt with a man in a relationship, though I have been known to discretely pinch a few bottoms in passing.

 

I fear that 5ml samples of fine Australian wines would be far too modest for a dedicated oenophile, and for me would be more than a tease.

 

Bye,

S1

Edited January 8, 2016 by Sandy1

[Notgatherox]

For some unknown reason I decided to collapse my last two bottles (from Cult) of 4001 b/b & put it away.

I normally trash all pen & ink boxes.

Now I found the boxes with a 14H for the big bottle & 15C for the small.

Wonder what these numbers signify? 14 for 2014? 15 for 2015? What about the letters?

What are the bad batches then?

 

Yes, my guess is similar to lapis - that 14H is August 2014. If true, then 15C is March 2015.

 

The bad batch is 14F - that's the only one that's been raised so far!

 

 

 

~Epic

[lapis]

 

Yes, my guess is similar to lapis - that 14H is August 2014. If true, then 15C is March 2015.

 

The bad batch is 14F - that's the only one that's been raised so far!

 

 

 

~Epic

My next guess is that 14F means 14° F. Comes in at around -10° C and thus hard to write with.

 

http://i654.photobucket.com/albums/uu264/peli46/Embarrassed.png

[Tanzanite]

On the box of my bad carts is 14A. The good box says 13E.

[cellmatrix]

Looking at my ink stores, I see that I have two bottles of pelikan blue black 4001 with 14F imprinted on the top flap of the box. I had previously noted that the ink in these bottles was both faded and purple tinged. So now, after reading this thread, it all makes sense.

[Chumango]

One of the "grey" blue-black I have is 14H, the other is 14F. The "blue" blue-black is 14F. I guess I could have mixed the boxes up when I was comparing the inks, as this is different from what others here have noted. In any case I have two 14F and one 14H, and by observation two "bad" and one "good" inks.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Chumango

[tinta]

It seems that my reserve bottles have "safe" serial numbers & the one bottle that I'm now using (& don't know the number) looks like the same Pel blue/black that I'd finished previously.

 

What I don't get is what makes the bad batches of Pel b/b bad .

 

Is it just that the ink's colour is not the colour its users expect it to be? Ink dries blue vs dries grey?

Or, is it that there's something chemically wrong with this ink, something that could damage my pens?

 

I go through this ink quite quickly & I usually don't like to hoard ink,... so I'd have to replenish my supply of Pelikan b/b from Cult Pens as I run out.

Should I then specify not to get the cited 14H?

[white_lotus]

Yes the problem is that the in in the bad batch(es), 14F being one, the color is not the typical 4001 blue-black color. In fact, it's a very feeble color, that darkens somewhat because of it's IG nature.

[Abner C. Kemp]

I'm sorry this happened to you. I actually kind of like the looks of the "bad batch" but I've always enjoyed grey inks.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Abner C. Kemp

[gweimer1]

I'm always glad for the discussions here. I just got some of the blue black to try (could find Waterman's). I thought it was me at first. This ink is really funky. It feels way too dry and does a significant color change from an almost transparent gray to a darker purplish gray. I checked the flap - it's a batch of 14H that I got on sale.

 

I guess I have ink for my dip pens for a while.

[matthiashk]

I still have a bottle of Pelikan blue-black about 10 years old and it looks greyish now. The original color is still one of my favorites and one of the reasons I became interested in fountain pen inks. I still can't bring myself to empty it out It's a bit worrying that this issue still hasn't been resolved.