How Fragile Are Fountain Pen Inks?

[loganrah]

I've seen a lot of discussion around here about various waterproof/permanent inks and it got me to wondering: how fragile are fountain pen inks?

 

In particular I want to know how fragile normal non waterproof/archival/permanent inks are. How quickly do they fade? How much humidity is too much humidity? Etc.

 

More specifically I'd like to know if I need permanent inks for the following situation: I'm writing a daily personal journal which I would like to last for at least the rest of my life, let's call that 80 years so I've got a good buffer. Assuming I use decent paper (currently Clairefontain) and store the journals away from light and excessive moisture, like a dry cupboard (but not in a humidity or temperature controlled environment) will standard fountain pen inks still be (easily) readable after 80 years?

[Astronymus]

My guess is the most destructive factor is UV-light. I'm pretty sure some inks are chemically unstable though. Especially when dye-based.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Astron

[Noihvo]

 

 

[Arkanabar]

While I have seen a washable blue fade rather severely, that was in a lowest-bidder spiral-bound school supplies type of notebook. There are a number of threads on photoresistance; in fact, I did one myself. Waterman Violet was the worst offender among my twenty or so inks, followed by a blue Quink cartridge that was probably washable blue (it came in a Vector calligraphy set). I used Georgia Pacific's lowest-bidder copy/print paper at Walmart, and it did yellow a bit along the way.

 

Here's a list of ink fade threads.

[thesmellofdustafterrain]

I'm in a similar situation. I need the ink to be good on the page for at least 42 years in a box in my basement, for reasons.

 

I'm looking at the noodler's inks with the 'eternal' quality. These seem to be PH neutral and resistant to moisture, uv, and other things that cause fading over time. At least that's what the internet says.

 

I remember my friend at the city archives said that the paper also influences how long the writing lasts.

[Astronymus]

Acid-free paper is madatory if you want to keep your papers for that long in a good condition.

[Bibliophage]

I've run across notes from my high school years (30 years ago) that are still just fine to read - and those were mostly written with Parker Vectors and standard parker Quink cartridges, and Sheaffer cartridges.

[txomsy]

My advice: use permanent (really permanent) inks. Anything else is a bet.

 

It is not a matter of storage. Life's full of surprises. You'll have accidents, floods, mold, broken pipes, leakages, pets, and the worst offender of all, kids. You can't be sure you'll never move to a new home and some notebook will not fall or be exposed to inclement weather in the process. You can't tell if reading one of those diaries in the future will not get you weeping (of joy, hopefully) over it or a tea will be spilled over while reading... There are just too many unpredictable possibilities.

 

I don't carry a diary, but did take many notes (formulas, methods, algorithms, recipes, protocols, addresses...) at work and on ttravels that I wanted to last. Some I still use thirty years after. I soon learned that I needed really permanent inks, waterproof, UV resistant, you know, the whole parafernalia,

 

You do not need likely to use Noodler's Eternal line, likely any archival quality ink will do. That opens up your choice: Noodler's bulletproof inks, Permanent inks from known makers (I really like MB permanent blue, which is ISO14145-2 certified), Koh-I-Noor document inks are also certified, the black is more a gray/very dark green and the blue a clear blue that can become darker if allowed to oxidize, and Rohrer and Klingner Salix and Scabiosa are certified too, ESSR ink (which is bang for the buck and liked by many) being used for ecclesiastic registers should last a good while too.

 

But, one thing is for sure: expect at least one of your notebooks to be soaked, exposed to bad weather, spilled over or abused by pets or kids. In a lifetime anything may happen. Do also expect some to be lost. Maybe consider digitizing them (so you can make as many copies as needed) at some point. That'll also help when you are older and eyesight suffers.

[eharriett]

I think you'll be good as long as the journals are closed. As Astron says, light will be the biggest factor.

 

Keep in mind right now we can read our parents and grandparents and great grandparents letters just find if they were kept away from light and water. There's a very, very good chance they were writing with basic Quink, Skrip, or Waterman ink, none of which had any permanence to them. At least, those qualities were not deliberate in the manufacture of the ink.

 

That being said, I use permanent inks for today for the forgery-proofness. Noodlers KTC and Legal Lapis are really, really hard to duplicate if someone wanted to change something I wrote on a legal document, unless they too happen to have those same bottles of ink available.

 

But that has nothing to do with passing my journal on to other generations. For that I use whatever strikes my fancy, including those old 30's bottles of Waterman Cardinal Red if I so desire.

[Tweel]

Life's full of surprises. You'll have accidents, floods, mold, broken pipes, leakages, pets, and the worst offender of all, kids.

 

I can confirm that those shocking, destructive surprises can and probably will happen. Out of the blue, from some unexpected cause. Don't put your papers in a cardboard box on a basement floor.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Tweel

[JakobS]

I don't really think of fragility when I am using fountain pen ink, the majority of it will hang around if you intend for it to. If you put it through any number of torture tests with no control of any variables, then yeah it may part ways with or without the paper. But, if you are intending for said paper to stick around, you probably aren't keeping it in an area that can be readily exposed to uncontrolled environmental hazards. Or, can be readily removed if those hazards arise. Wet, moldy notebooks no matter the ink aren't very enjoyable to try to salvage content from! Generally, archivists attempt to keep written documents at around 65-72F and 35-55% humidity, basements and attics have the largest shifts in temperature and humidity, so best to avoid those areas for storage. Air pollution is another factor many people dont realize. Indoor air pollution can be 90% higher than outside air pollution depending on how air tight, or "leaky" your house is. This pollution can acidify paper and fade ink of many types. I have had standard Diamine, Pelikan 4001, Waterman, and Lamy inks, to name a few brands I used a lot in college twelve years ago, remain unchanged since they were written with stored in a dry, low humidity area. Sheaffer Skrip black I wrote with in a sketch notebook twenty two years ago is equally unchanged. Standard fountain pen inks, except perhaps the washable varieties, don't need to be overly babied compared to other types of ink, but like any written documents you wish to have around for awhile, good storage practices are a must!

Edited March 25, 2019 by JakobS

[loganrah]

Thanks everyone.

I understand that the safest bet would be too use a more permanent ink. But the more permanent the ink the lower my choice of colours and (as far as I can tell) the more hassle it will be to deal with in the pen (requiring frequent flushing etc.) So for me it is a balancing act, I want these journals to last but I also want them to look nice and to have fun writing them. I think at the moment I'll stick with using fun/beautiful inks and see what happens over time.

 

Digitising each journal as I finish it seems like a good idea too, but digital archives are subject to many failure modes, if not the same ones, as hard copy.

For legal documents that are really important I can see the usefulness of a forgery proof ink (and in fact I have some Noodler's prime of the commons for that purpose if I ever need it), but its so unusual to have only a single copy of a legal document these days, and I doubt many would be interest in forging anything that most of us write (unless you are a lawyer or famous in some manner) that I very much doubt even that is worth the trouble of using such an ink. (In Australia cheques are essentially obsolete, I've never written one and doubt I ever will, so that use is out to).

[Antenociticus]

For a while now I've been investigating "permanent" inks of one sort or another for the purposes of an art/writing project. I want the finished object to last. And I need a variety of inks – three or four different colours that work with each other and all play nicely with the same paper. It's difficult figuring it out, though it's a great enabling excuse for buying loads of ink.

 

It's certainly true that the choice of colours is limited compared to the vast spectrum of modern dye-based fountain pen inks. In the area of dark blue/blue-black/black there are lots of possibilities, but some colours are almost impossible. Try finding a decent durable red, for example.

 

And some of the most durable inks have other properties that are undesirable. Noodler's inks tend to spread and feather and blob. Rohrer & Klingner or Koh-I-Noor document inks leave a very flat line with no shading whatsoever. Super5 inks gum up your nib super quickly. Iron gall inks are apparently not very lightfast – and whether an ink fades over time is one of the most difficult things to test for.

 

Thus far my favourites are the Sailor nanopigment inks.

[OCArt]

I have just gone through the search for "permanent" inks. Here's what I settled on

MB Permanent Blue-- a very wonderful ink that could become my everything ink.

Noodler's 54 N, Massasschuetts (blue/black)

Hero 232 iron gall blue-black

Noodler's Fox Red

Noodler's Hunter Green

and through the help of a wonderful FPN member FPN Galileo Manuscript Brown

 

Have fun!

[txomsy]

And you also have De Atramentis Document inks, which can be mixed, and include a nice range of colours (with all primary colors).

 

The lack of fancy colors in permanent inks was a problem till a few years ago, but I do not think one can still say so. Just google and you'll find a broad offer.

 

The problems of many Noodler's inks may be fixed with a small dilution in water (do always dilute in small quantities to avoid spoiling a larger quantity if the experiment does not work).

 

For fun, one may want to try Rome Burning by Noodler, should make a fun reading in the future if watered and used for the adequate topics

[A Smug Dill]

I understand that the safest bet would be too use a more permanent ink. But the more permanent the ink the lower my choice of colours and (as far as I can tell) the more hassle it will be to deal with in the pen (requiring frequent flushing etc.) So for me it is a balancing act, I want these journals to last but I also want them to look nice and to have fun writing them.

Writing is logically quite a different matter from dealing with pen hygiene, though. It shouldn't prevent you from having fun in the (say) half an hour of writing each day in your journals, even if each week there is fifteen minutes' worth of pen maintenance work to do irrespective of whether (or how much) you wrote in your journals that week.

 

Or, you could always take the view that (even $200+) pens are far more expendable than your journals because of the content you put in the latter. You want the journals to last 80 years, but if a fancy gold-nibbed pen only lasts five, well shucks, that could always be replaced with a current model without interfering with your journalling habits.

 

I think at the moment I'll stick with using fun/beautiful inks and see what happens over time.

 

As has been pointed out, there are more than enough colours of permanent inks from which to choose today: Sailor's seiboku, souboku, kiwaguro, and Storia line of pigment inks (which has eight regular colours and also some limited edition ones) are permanent, as are Platinum's (blue, red and sepia) pigment inks and Carbon Black ink; Platinum Classic Ink, being iron-gall, is pretty permanent as well. There there are the Rohrer & Klingner Dokumentus and De Atramentis document inks, Lamy Benitoite ink, and of course many Noodler's inks (which I personally don't recommend, but hey, that's a matter of personal tastes and requirements). It's likely that the vast majority of (individual) fountain pen users in the world don't use two or three dozen inks each.

 

It's more of an issue when someone insists, "But I want to use Sailor souten for the colour, shading and sheen I see others get from it!" or some such, when the particular ink may never have been designed, intended or formulated to be permanent.

[loganrah]

 

 

Or, you could always take the view that (even $200+) pens are far more expendable than your journals because of the content you put in the latter. You want the journals to last 80 years, but if a fancy gold-nibbed pen only lasts five, well shucks, that could always be replaced with a current model without interfering with your journalling habits.

This is something I hadn't been thinking about. Partly because at the moment $200 seems like a lot of money too me (I'm finishing up a PhD). But objectively I know that in the long run its not that much money.

 

 

 

 

As has been pointed out, there are more than enough colours of permanent inks from which to choose today: Sailor's seiboku, souboku, kiwaguro, and Storia line of pigment inks (which has eight regular colours and also some limited edition ones) are permanent, as are Platinum's (blue, red and sepia) pigment inks and Carbon Black ink; Platinum Classic Ink, being iron-gall, is pretty permanent as well. There there are the Rohrer & Klingner Dokumentus and De Atramentis document inks, Lamy Benitoite ink, and of course many Noodler's inks (which I personally don't recommend, but hey, that's a matter of personal tastes and requirements). It's likely that the vast majority of (individual) fountain pen users in the world don't use two or three dozen inks each.

 

I guess I was thinking like the range of colours that Diamine inks come in, I love having the choice there. But if I could find a few good colours I like for permanence then I guess I can play with different inks for non-permanent uses (note taking, doodling, writing drafts etc.).

 

Those Sailor Storia inks actually look really good to me (I especially like the look of Lion, since it is similar to Diamine Ancient Copper which I love).

 

A new question then: If I do use some pigment inks, apart from flushing the pen regularly (and using them regularly), is there anything else to watch out for? And are there any particular pens that work well with them? (I've seen the Platinum carbon desk pens which look cool and are quite cheap, but I'd like a wider range of nibs if possible).

[A Smug Dill]

Partly because at the moment $200 seems like a lot of money too me (I'm finishing up a PhD). But objectively I know that in the long run its not that much money.

Part of the equation is also what you personally can "have fun writing" with. I'm quite happy with my Delike New Moon 3 (which cost me <A$8 each, and came with a 'spare' Medium nib each along with the EF nib already fitted), Wing Sung 3008 (~$4 each when I bought my first two dozen, and the most recent purchase of four on eBay was about $3 each after applying the 10% discount code to almost counter the GST effect) and Pilot MR (as low as $21 inclusive of GST on Amazon.com.au from time to time for the plain black model) pens, although I also enjoy writing with my $200, $500 and $1000 pens.

 

I guess I was thinking like the range of colours that Diamine inks come in, I love having the choice there.

I 'hate to' say this, but as much as I like Diamine inks on the whole (and I have 62 retail bottles of them, if my spreadsheet is accurate), and have told my fiancée that if I started all over again in this 'hobby' I'd have favoured buying Diamine over all the Pilot Iroshizuku inks I purchased early on and Sailor Shikiori inks last year, the characteristic about Diamine inks that first comes to my mind is (relatively) cheap, which in turn translates to good-value-for-money. However, if my overriding obsession is ink permanence, then cost of acquisition goes out the window in my first pass of reviewing what's available, and once I've listed the several dozen permanent inks (categorised by colour families?) on the market, then I can factor in cost of acquisition and choose to restrict my selection to what I'm prepared to 'afford'.

 

I was looking at the Rohrer & Klingner Dokumentus line recently, and the brown one has been in my shopping cart for a long time. However, when it came to the crunch, I wasn't prepared to pay fivefold what the price of non-permanent R&K inks is from the same seller. That's a personal choice I made as a consumer, and I'll be among the first to put my hand up to admit being a cheapskate (at times — but less often than my fiancée would like me to be). As you've said it yourself, it's a balancing act; and not the ink manufacturers' responsibility as such to make a broader selection of colours in their catalogues available in permanent versions at similar prices (or a trivial premium) to the regular versions, especially if they make a wide selection of colours (like Diamine does).

 

But if I could find a few good colours I like for permanence

Again, you can easily find forty or fifty (or even more) colours of permanent ink in the market today. Being able to try each one, and then select the 'few' or several that best suit your preferences and your pens, while containing your costs within budget is the challenge, especially as an Australian consumer.

 

That is one of the reasons I started the Aussie FPN pass-around initiative, and included four Sailor pigment inks and four 'bulletproof' (or near-'bulletproof') Noodler's inks in the selection of inks. I hoped it makes it a little easier to fellow Aussie fountain pen users to decide into which inks to 'sink' money as an investment in the content they put on paper.

 

Those Sailor Storia inks actually look really good to me (I especially like the look of Lion, since it is similar to Diamine Ancient Copper which I love).

I only included samples of one of the three Sailor Storia inks in the pass-around box, and it wasn't the Lion Light Brown, but if you want I'm happy to send you a sample vial of it. (Send me a private message if you want it.)

 

A new question then: If I do use some pigment inks, apart from flushing the pen regularly (and using them regularly), is there anything else to watch out for?

The general advice would be: don't let the ink dry in the pen and/or converter.

 

And are there any particular pens that work well with them?

Most of the pigment inks that are marketed as "suitable for fountain pens" today can be used in just about any fountain pen, although the actual writing performance may vary depending on a number of factors, including the particular nib, feed and converter used. I've put Platinum Carbon Black in my Pilot 'Hannya Shingyo', which is easily one of my three most expensive pens (and among the ones I treasure most).

 

To that end, a good seal in the pen cap helps. You can get that in ¥32,400 (MSRP inc. tax) Platinum #3776 Century celluloid pens, or ¥226 (street price, inc. tax) Platinum Preppy pens. I've put the three Sailor Storia ink colours I have in three Platinum Preppy pens, and turned two of them into eye-droppers. (For some reason, Storia Magic Purple just won't play well that way, and I had to use a converter to stop the pen from leaking through the section.)

 

I'd like a wider range of nibs if possible).

Platinum Preppy pens come with Extra Fine (02), Fine (03) and Medium (05) nibs. If you want Broad, Music or Soft-whatever nibs, you'll have to go straight to the 14K gold-nibbed Platinum #3776 Century range.

[XYZZY]

 

Those Sailor Storia inks actually look really good to me (I especially like the look of Lion, since it is similar to Diamine Ancient Copper which I love).

 

 

I've tried samples of four of the Storia inks, and found them to be initially disappointing. Their problem is that they look little like Sailor's pictures. And they dry to a chalky finish, which you also don't expect from pictures.

 

Online reviews give a better impression of the color shades, but at the time I didn't know enough to check out the reviews. However, the reviews do not convey the chalky appearance. They often mention the chalky finish, I just mean that it's hard to get a sense of it visually.

 

Note that I said "initially disappointing". Once I wrote with them for a while I found myself liking them. So I definitely suggest starting with a sample, but also stick with the sample to give them a chance.

 

Also, Sailor documents somewhere that the Storia inks can be mixed among themselves.