Gimborn Inkbottles, An Introduction ** Picture Heavy **

[odessa1944]

So, these inks were all sold by weight of the liquid, and not by volume?

well, strangely enough, most catalogues mention weight in grammes but the catalogues from 1910/1915 and the one from 1926 mention liters or 1/8, 1/16,1/32 liter and so on. Why a different system in those 2 catalogues is beyond me.

the catalogues mentioning the weight in grammes use liters or fractions when reffering to the bandflessen or band/beltbottles (Larger bottles ranging from 2 liters to 1/16 liter, all having the same shape. Bandflessen are named that way because they have bands/belt of glass sticking out at the bottomsides and topsides, sometimes they are called bobbin-bottles because they kind of resemble the old-fashioned wooden bobbins))

Edited September 6, 2019 by odessa1944

[alexander_k]

Great stuff! Many thanks for sharing this information.

[odessa1944]

well, now I have been talking about the bandflessen or band-bottles anyway, I might as well continue with them.

 

 

 

 

 

The bandflessen or band-bottles were used by Gimborn since the beginning in 1902 and probably before that date with the German Gimborn company. Until the catalogue of 1926 the biggest bandfles had a content of 2 liters. There are no surviving examples of this 2 liter bottle but the other sizes are easy to find, with the 1/16 liter being very rare and the others pretty common. They were used with many different labels and inks. This bottle as stated before is in Holland sometimes called "garenklosje" or bobbin.

In the early 1930 bakelite screw-caps were introduced for these bottles, often with a two-piece bakelite cap with reversed thread so school-children could not open the bottle by themselves. On top of the bakelite caps was the name "Gimborn" written or an image of the titan pouring ink out over a globe. Before the 1930`s they used grijpkurken or gripcorks as caps.

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

Sometimes we can find bandflessen with screw-thread in the glass but with a cork in the neck. this can be a case of a bottle missing it`s bakelite cap but it was also an official variant sometimes seen in the cataloques.

 

The bandflessen in it`s different sizes usually have their own size label but sometimes a small label was used for big bottles.

Also a possibility was a label for a completely different kind of bottle to be used on the bandflessen.

Edited September 6, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

Besides ink, these bandflessen were also used for glue, waterpaint and writing lacquer. Over the cap, be it gripcork or bakelite, there went a round toplabel with on 2 sides an long strip which went down the neck with another necklabel around these 2 strips, forming a seal.

 

A strange bottle is a liter-bottle I have in brown glass. No cataloque mentions this variant. all bandflessen were normal glass.

This brown bottle is from the `s Heerenberg period and very old. Maybe in the beginning there were some brown bottles used, but I have never seen a second one.

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

An old liter-bottle with a label in french. Gimborn supplied inkbottles also to Belgium,France and more countries. This however is a bottle from the German Gimborn company.

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

Another bandfles, this time with Galnut schoolink, a cheaper ink which was washable, so if kids got stains in their clothing, their mom could get the stains out. The small label on the front bottom is a quality label usually found on the neck with other school-ink bottles. Quality A is better then quality B.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes people think that wine-bottles were used because of the war-shortage of glass, but Gimborn used these bottles long before and after the second word war.

Edited September 6, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

1855 blue-black galnut writing ink 1 liter

 

 

document ink 1 liter

 

 

iron galnut schoolink 1 liter

 

[odessa1944]

Extra-fine green metalink 1/2 liter

 

 

Alizarine writing and copying ink 1/2 liter

 

 

Liquid east-indian titan ink 1/4 liter

 

Edited September 7, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

Normal writing ink 1/8 liter with gripcork

 

 

[odessa1944]

Normal writing ink 1 liter bottle

 

 

Another 1 liter normal writing ink

 

 

Normal writing ink 1/2 liter

 

 

Normal writing ink 1/8 liter bottle

 

 

 

[Bibliophage]

well, strangely enough, most catalogues mention weight in grammes but the catalogues from 1910/1915 and the one from 1926 mention liters or 1/8, 1/16,1/32 liter and so on. Why a different system in those 2 catalogues is beyond me.

the catalogues mentioning the weight in grammes use liters or fractions when reffering to the bandflessen or band/beltbottles (Larger bottles ranging from 2 liters to 1/16 liter, all having the same shape. Bandflessen are named that way because they have bands/belt of glass sticking out at the bottomsides and topsides, sometimes they are called bobbin-bottles because they kind of resemble the old-fashioned wooden bobbins))

The strangest part of that is using fractions, as the de-facto usage for a decimalized measurement system is tenths. Technically, a gram of water is a cubic centimeter, (CC, aka millilitre), but you generally don't use them interchangeably unless it's pure water.

 

My experience has been that people raised strictly with the metric system tend to be horrible with fractions, while those using Imperial or both (Canada, UK, AU, US) tend to be flexible.

 

It's just very interesting.

 

I'll admit, I like the shape of those bobbin bottles. I wish they sold ink in those now - I'd buy a few, even if I didn't use the ink!

 

Brown glass - brown glass is often recycled/re-melted glass. When you blend black, brown, green, blue, etc together, they end up being brown glass. That's why beer bottles in Canada were brown for a very long time. (I remember walking along the sides of the roads, picking them up from the ditches, to take to the government store for the deposit)

[odessa1944]

Homework-ink 1 liter

 

 

A later 1 liter fountainpen-ink bottle

 

 

same ink, 1/2 liter bottle

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

The strangest part of that is using fractions, as the de-facto usage for a decimalized measurement system is tenths. Technically, a gram of water is a cubic centimeter, (CC, aka millilitre), but you generally don't use them interchangeably unless it's pure water.

 

My experience has been that people raised strictly with the metric system tend to be horrible with fractions, while those using Imperial or both (Canada, UK, AU, US) tend to be flexible.

 

It's just very interesting.

 

I'll admit, I like the shape of those bobbin bottles. I wish they sold ink in those now - I'd buy a few, even if I didn't use the ink!

 

Brown glass - brown glass is often recycled/re-melted glass. When you blend black, brown, green, blue, etc together, they end up being brown glass. That's why beer bottles in Canada were brown for a very long time. (I remember walking along the sides of the roads, picking them up from the ditches, to take to the government store for the deposit)

Thanks for your input, and you are right. I for one, am terrible at fractions. I don`t understand with DIY how americans can work with 1/8 of an inch,and so on. We in europe work with millimeters, and to me that`s logic and easy.

 

You`re explanation for the brown bottle make total sense. Never thought about that. Thanks !

[odessa1944]

MINERVA a blue-black galnut writing ink 1 liter

 

 

 

Minerva ink 1/2 liter

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

Gimborn "watertight" writing laquer 1 liter

 

 

writing laquer 1/2 liter different color

 

 

 

[odessa1944]

Fine red metalink 1/2 liter

 

 

Extra fine violet ink 1/2 liter

 

 

Extra fine blue metalink 1/4 liter

 

 

Extra fine red metalink 1/4 liter

 

 

Edited September 7, 2019 by odessa1944

[odessa1944]

3 bottles of 1/4 liter fountainpen-ink ruby-red and blue

 

[Arkanabar]

Thanks for your input, and you are right. I for one, am terrible at fractions. I don`t understand with DIY how americans can work with 1/8 of an inch,and so on. We in europe work with millimeters, and to me that`s logic and easy.

 

You`re explanation for the brown bottle make total sense. Never thought about that. Thanks !

And yet, you're probably used to fractions when it comes to liquids. After all, 1/2L, 1/4L, 1/8L, and 1/16L are 500mL, 250mL, 125mL, and 62.5mL, and ink is still sold in these quantities by a number of makers. But apparently 1/32L got rounded from 31.25mL to 30mL. No biggie.