Sheaffer's Skrip Permanent Blue Black #22 (Vintage)

[white_lotus]

Well ink loving friends, here is a review of some vintage Sheaffer's Skrip Permanent Blue Black with RC-35! There are some older reviews on our site, but not many. Let me share the story of my acquisition.

 

Attending a preview for a living auction of someone in our area moving to an assisted living in Florida, I discovered a secretary's desk. It had been repainted a muted green, though I fail to understand the mentality that wishes to cover beautiful old, dark wood. The auctioneers weren't going to bother offering the contents separately, so near the end of the long day it came for sale. The desk itself was neat, but the contents were even better: some old pens, dip pens and nibs, other knick-knacks and bric-a-brac, and a bottle of Sheaffer Skrip ink.

 

From a bit of research on the site this bottle comes from the era 1955-67. It was made in Ft. Madison while the Snorkel pen was on the market. It's somewhat easy here to find old bottles, less so with liquid ink in them. This ink was perfectly clear, still had a good inky aroma. In working on a project with my inks, I filled an Edison Beaumont pneumatic filler with this one. Here are the results.

 

The images seem to have captured the ink as darker than in fact. This is not the darkest of the modern blue-black inks, it is lighter than most, but not light itself, if that makes sense. BB4B, OS Manganese, Sailor Shoushikan Sei-ran, and others are all darker overall than this ink. But these other inks don't have quite the same kind of shading as this one which ranges from fairly light to quite dark. Another review shows this ink as being much darker. But I can't elaborate on the provenance of this particular bottle other than what I have.

 

I haven't experienced any problems with this ink. It is actually quite water resistant, so while it is said you can recover your writing under UV light if the ink is washed away, at least on the modern inkjet paper it was quite permanent.

 

A nice trip down memory lane.

 

Pen: Edison Beaumont pneumatic (M-steel)

Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory.

Camera: iPhone 7

[eharriett]

Nice review. I recently acquired a bottle of this very ink that was 2/3 full. I think it is fantastic blue black as well. It has that slight shade of green on it that I really enjoy in my blue blacks. As soon as I got my Snorkel back from getting refurbished, that was the ink I put in it. Seemed like a logical choice. Oddly, the ink didn't work very well with it. Since it was the first ink with a pen I was unfamiliar with, I dumped it and then filled the pen with Noodler's Air Corp Blue Black (which is really close) and the pen wrote really great. So the Sheaffer ink in a Sheaffer pen matchup did not work well. But then I put that same ink in an old Waterman and it behaved wonderfully. Go figure.

 

I have about 4 vintage blue-blacks and this one that you reviewed is my favorite of the vintages.

[antichresis]

Thank you for the review! I wish we had more reviews of vintage inks, especially to open up the idea to those lucky ones who live in places where it is an option (cheap, safe, and good performance). Sadly, this isn't the case where I live and I have to resort to "recreating" the colour of the ink (which is helped immensely the more reviews of an ink there are).

 

You should post a photo of the desk and its contents too!

[chromantic]

I find it amusing that Sheaffer calls it "writing fluid". P.T. Barnum springs to mind.

[mmg122]

I'm a big fan of the vintage Sheaffer inks...the ones made in the US. Those folks who remember Frank Dubiel who wrote one of the first books on pen repair (and some would say the definitive book) will remember that Frank always claimed that Sheaffer ink was the safest ink to use in fountain pens. Of the vintage Sheaffer inks, this one and Peacock Blue are my favorites. Thanks, white_lotus, for this review of a much loved vintage ink.

 

Mary

[amberleadavis]

Thank you, White Lotus. I loved the story and I love this ink. This ink - bar none - is the very best ink I have ever tried for removing stains.

[shea2812]

Today I just bought two bottles of these. Marked on label as Made in Australia!

[eharriett]

Today I just bought two bottles of these. Marked on label as Made in Australia!

Ooh. I wonder what the difference is between the USA made one and the Australian-made? If it was modern, I'd expect certain banned chemicals would be altered. But back then I'm not sure that would have been the case.

[truthpil]

Thanks for this excellent review. I absolutely must find a bottle of this ink! It fills a gap in my out of control amassing of blue-black inks.

[Safari_Camo]

Nice Hue !

Is there any similar in other brand?.

[inkstainedruth]

How did I miss this thread before?

I have some of this, courtesy of FPN member BLeair. At least I'm presuming it's the same stuff -- he just sent a small glass jar of it, in trade for a bottle of one of the Noodler's LE inks from the Commonwealth Pen Show 2 years ago. Right now I have it in the Sheaffer Balance Oversize that used to belong to my husband's grandfather, and I'm liking the ink very much.

Thanks for the review.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[bob_hayden]

Aha! This perfectly matches my idea of "ink color" -- the color ink was when there was only one color. I am not surprised, as I grew up on Sheaffer inks, but my memories are of the later rather washed out blue-black. Maybe this is what they used in school for dip pens when I was younger?

[truthpil]

Argh, just got outbid on a full bottle of this. It defintely looks like a nice complex color and not washed out the way some vintage BBs often look.

[truthpil]

Good news! Someone is selling 7 NOS bottles of #22 on the bay right now.

[Octo]

This seems to be the ink my grandfather used (I saw some label-less bottles in his burn barrel). Pendemonium's Legal Lapis reminds me of his ink, so I keep LL in one of my daily carry pens. Lots of memories.

[bob_hayden]

Thanks for the tip, TruthPil. I just ordered a bottle.

[bob_hayden]

My ink arrived and it's a mixed bag. My initial reaction was a sigh of relief as I noticed ink had not leaked out all over the box. Then I panicked a bit when I found the cap loose! Not to worry -- the cardboard gasket had become welded to the lip of the bottle and no ink had leaked out. The bottle seemed filled to at least 90% of original capacity. That may well be how full these were when new for all I know. So I put a converter in an old Sheaffer Dollar Pen and filled it. Though the nib had just been in the bottle I found this combination wrote VERY dry. That is unusual for the Dollar Pens. Color was much lighter than the scans above. In fact, I wondered if it was any different than the non-22 blue-black I know. So I grabbed another Dollar Pen and put an old cartridge in that. It came out much darker! That is not how I remember it at all so I had to do some investigating.

 

I had very old writing samples of the blue black I remember and indeed these were lighter than #22. The latter also seemed a bit bluer and certainly a bit greener. So I looked at my old blue-black cartridges a bit more carefully, and they were roughly one-third full. Apparently diffusion of the water molecules has made them triple strength! At that strength, and in this pen, it was a very wet writer.

 

Finally, I grabbed a Pai Li pen that had been filled with Slovenian Sheaffer Blue-Black for testing (of the pen). That proved slightly darker than the #22 with less blue or green. However, the Pai Li had a finer nib and was quite dry so that may have diminished the apparent difference.

 

So I am happy to have another bottle of real Sheaffer USA ink in stock but this will definitely not be my BB of choice. I like the triple strength old cartridges much better!-) As the #22 is permanent I may use it for writing checks and such. I have had some complaints when I have signed things with my usual black ink. Perhaps they feel black ink is too easy to Xerox, though that attitude seems pretty dated with color copiers readily available.

[truthpil]

Thanks for the update! Oh no, so the bottled #22 is quite light in color and dry? That was my disappointment with a vintage bottle of Quink BB I got a few months back. Dry as a bone and too pale with anything but the wettest nibs.

 

So far the closest ink I've found that resembles the color in the OP is Hero Dux 402 Blue Black. I don't know if it's available in the States but it is a lovely rich hue with just a hint of green with some pen/paper combinations. It's also permanent.

 

I like those old triple strength cartridges as well. I once got a NOS Pelikan with an old BB cartridge inside and have been looking for a BB that rich and dark ever since.

[bob_hayden]

I wouldn't say "quite light". It is darker than many a classic blue black. The closest things in my records would be Hero 0028 cartridges and Bad Blue Heron and 54th Massachusetts from Noodler's. A step darker would be Slovenian Sheaffer or Namiki, then Monteverde, Diamine Twilight or Blue-Black, and the Aristotle iron gall ink. Darker still are Diamine Registrar's Ink and Noodler's Midnight Blue. (Since you like a little green in there I am not mentioning any black-blues here.)

 

To double check "dry" I put some #22 in a Parker Reflex which is very wet with Thornton Blue -- and Thornton inks typically have flow problems. It felt about the same as the Dollar Pen with #22. There is no skipping but not much ink is laid down in view of the nib width. I suspect there is not much lubrication either. It is 100% functional but I do not find it pleasant to write with. As this old ink is marked "permanent" I am wondering if it is an iron gall ink.

[truthpil]

That's a really helpful comparison! I'm glad it's closer to 54th Massachusetts. I liked that ink's color but not its chalkiness on some papers and its annoying tendency to dry on the nib.

 

How's the shading with #22?

 

On the non-green side of things, what's your favorite black-blue?