Fountain Pen Ink On Paper Fading Away After Sometime

[IndieNote]

 

Hello everyone!

 

I read a post recently where a user was complaining of inks getting faded very soon. Is this normal with all brands of ink?

 

Does that mean what I write today will not be readable and vanish after some time? Then what is the use of using fountain pens - just for fancy?

 

How can you maintain a journal or write something that needs to be there for a long time with fountain pens if the inks fade away?

 

Isn't it better to use a ballpoint pens and rollerball pens that are way cheaper and anything you write would still be readable for a long time? I used to write with a Pilot needlepoint rollerball pens in my school and they are still intact. Why to use a fountain pen then? Are fade resistant inks available in many colors?

 

I hope I haven't offended anyone. I am a newbie here.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Wolverine1]

Well, I have my journals that I wrote in the early 1990s, and the ink I wrote in, Parker Penman inks, seems to have held up quite well. Also, in the Bentley Historical Library of the Univ of Michigan, I have seen old journals written by famous folks which are from the Civil War era, that are completely legible. I think while talking to one of the book conservators in the library, he said that usually it is not the ink that causes the problems, but, the paper on which the words are written on. He said that the chemicals in the paper, left from the particular manufacturing process, usually, over time reacts to the chemicals in the inks, causing the inks to fade, etc. So, some folks get archival grade quality paper to write their important stuff in.

Someone who has actual expertise in this field will probably chime in and tell us more about this important issue.

[Fuzzy_Bear]

Not at all. There are inks that the paper has to disappear for the inks to go away.

 

Stay here. https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/282789-start-here-inky-t-o-d-topics-oday/?do=findComment&comment=3917329

 

Scroll down to ink fade tests and toy will get an idea of the more resistant inks. Most of these tests were done in direct sunlight.

[A Smug Dill]

Different ink brands, colours and types exhibit different degrees of lightfastness.

 

You can try doing a search such as https://www.google.com.au/search?q=lightfastness+site:www.fountainpennetwork.com, which should return lots of test results and discussions on FPN for you to peruse, if that concerns you particularly, just as it apparently is a key concern of a number of other fountain pen users.

 

For some users, the writing experience is simply more appealing and/or enjoyable with fountain pens; and there are well over a thousand commercially available inks in the market today with which one can choose to fill a fountain pen, so in all likelihood there would be one or more inks that satisfy a user's requirements with regard to colour, acidity, behaviour in particular pens and/or on particular types of paper, lightfastness, water resistance, and so on.

[ardene]

As the others have said there are archival quality inks. Even with less resistant inks it is exposure to sunlight and air which will affect the written text. This menas nothing more than covering the written pages with other paper, like they naturally are bound together in a naotebook. Despite the possibility of fading, most inks remain perfectly readable many years later even if faded.

[IndieNote]

So, if I don't expose the written text to sun and water any ink would last for a long time (at least 5 years)?

[A Smug Dill]

So, if I don't expose the written text to sun and water any ink would last for a long time (at least 5 years)?

 

 

It depends on the particular ink, as well as the particular type of paper.

[Orval]

My notes of the primary school (+50 years ago) are still unchanged.

I have many notes and letters from my ancestors since 1680 written with ink and they are all perfectly readable without significant fading.

However, I noticed that the paper used during the French occupation of Belgium after the French revolution (around 1800-1814) was of a lesser quality. The problem is not the fading but more the paper that desintegrates.

Of course, I don't store these in plain sunlight.

[Olya]

So, if I don't expose the written text to sun and water any ink would last for a long time (at least 5 years)?

Generally, yes, but that applies to all types of ink: oily (ballpoint), gel and liquid ink.

 

The only ink which is famous for fading are washable blues, but even those won't fade into nothingness, but remain legible for ages.

Washable/erasable inks can generally be difficult, that incl. gel pens and rollerballs (eg Pilot Frixion is sensitive to temperatures and people who live or work in drastic climates can't or shouldn't use these pens).

 

Some standard simple fountain pen inks are more stable and light- and waterfast than for example some ballpoints.

 

Pigment inks should last for at least 1000s of years even if exposed to sun and water, but even there are drawbacks as the pigments don't soak into the paper and therefore can be moved (by either smearing them with your finger or by spilling water!!).

 

Paper quality is also important, again for any ink. As pointed out, paper can detoriate before ink. Also some papers make ink detoriate (non-acid paper is best, but even non-acid paper can turn acidic).

 

In short nothing is forever, but even the most shoddy ink should last you many many years.

 

<<Does that mean what I write today will not be readable and vanish after some time? Then what is the use of using fountain pens - just for fancy?

>>If fountain pen ink (or any ink for that matter!) were this shoddy, no one would use it, regardless how fancy it looks or seems!

 

Edit: I'd also like to note that millions of schoolchildren across Europe have been using washable blue ink for decades now and no disasters at all, no one has lost all their notes or exam papers due to spills or fading. So if the least stable ink is stable enough for decades of school use (to this day), then there's no need to be worried, esp when it comes to non-washables.

 

And: Pigment inks are available in oily ballpoints, gels, liquid ink rollerballs and for fountain pens.

 

Iron gall ink is waterfast, but can and will fade, as well as eat through paper or parchment (see eg old texts, where the IG ink is still good but the medium the text is written on has holes, because the highly acidic iron gall has eaten its way through).

Edited February 10, 2020 by Olya

[katerchen]

So, if I don't expose the written text to sun and water any ink would last for a long time (at least 5 years)?

 

 

Even just air would fade away some inks without the help of direct sunlight. I usually put a swab on my ink bottles to remind me what the ink looks like. It's interesting to watch which ones hold up and which ones don't. I can tell you without hesitation though that Royal Blue (in general, not just one brand) is the weakest.

 

-k

[Jerome Tarshis]

For me, at least, what we are dealing with most is the change in the nature of cheap, commonly used paper. I've had American school notebooks from the 1970s on which there was no noticeable fading, but in notebooks manufactured in more recent decades there is decided fading, especially with blue inks.

 

It is not relevant to speak of documents surviving for 300 years. Those documents weren't written on cheap paper bought yesterday. And the European schoolchildren weren't writing on the paper I am most likely to write on.

 

A physicist friend reports losing entire readability from American lab notebooks only a year old in which the writing was never exposed to sunlight. Closed notebook on shelf, writing has disappeared. I use the word "American" because it is conceivable that the situation would have been different if he had been using another country's version of an ordinary lab notebook. Then again, in our globalizing world economy, the paper situation may have gone equally downhill everywhere. But perhaps not.

[Trekker]

One thing to keep in mind is the nature of how the color exists.

• Iron Gall (the original Blue-Black): Basically turns black on the page due to oxidation. Blue dye is added to see it as you're writing with it. The blue fades over many decades but the black remains.
• Analine Dyes (azo dyes made with aniline as one of the components that react to make a dye): Also used in ballpoint pens, etc. Not lightfast.
• Cellulose Reactive Dyes ("Colorfast Dyes"): e.g., Noodler's Bulletproof. Lightfast, waterproof.
• Pigments: Very finely round pigments that stay suspended in the fluid carrier (i.e., nano pigments). Used in some gel pens (e.g., Uni-Ball) and some fountain pen inks (e.g., Sailor Seiboku).

[Arkanabar]

Lots of good information here. As one of the people who ran an ink fade trial, and follows them whenever I can, I can agree that

 

• Paper affects durability, especially its acid content
• Inks are generally all different from each other
• My two fastest-fading inks were a blue cartridge that came with a Parker Vector calligraphy set and Waterman purple
• Noodler's Bay State Blue is one of the most fade-prone inks around
• In spite of their water resistance, some IG inks (e.g., R&K) are prone to fading in sunlight, and nearly all of them will go transparent in the presence of bleach
• Noodler's Heart of Darkness and original Black are really, really, resistant
• Many will attest that nano-pigment inks (Platinum Carbon, Sailor Seiboku and Soubouku) are essentially indelible once dry -- the base carries the nano-particles into the paper's matrix, and nothing gets them out

 

You could do really well by reading through the pinned thread, Start Here: Inky T O D, Topics O' Day, on the Inky Thoughts forum.

[txomsy]

This was written in "standard" ink (possibly Waterman or Pelikan blue, I cannot remember) in 1983 on (what was then considered) cheap paper. It was the first page of a bunch of loose notes and has been uncovered in a binder since then, exposed to light, air, whatever. It is true that by then I already preferred "permanent" inks (which usually meant relatively water resistant). It has faded noticeably when compared with the other loose pages. Let's say it has been continuously exposed to indirect light.

 

Edited: now I think this was actually Parker Qink, likely Permanent blue (where permanent, at the time, didn't imply paper permanence or much water resistance, which is why I loved Koh-i-Noor, R&K and Noodler's when I discovered them).

 

 

You can do a lot better nowadays, it is truly easy to find -as already mentioned- archival quality inks in almost any color (or in mixable colors), so, just judge by yourself.

 

Yeah, it may fade, but unless exposed to direct sunlight (e.g. in a window or a laundry drying line) continuously, you can expect practically any ink to last a very long time, and if it is not exposed to sunlight (e.g. it is not a drawing hung in a wall), say, a page in a notebook or inside a portfolio, or just covered by other pages, or inside an envelope, it will probably take ages for the ink to become unreadable. There are probably exceptions, but with "normal" or "standard" inks you shouldn't worry. If they are archival quality, or even more like Noodler's Eternal inks, they will probably last longer than the paper they are written in,

 

There are indeed anecdotes of paper crumpling down and only the written text surviving.

 

By comparison, this is probably text written in the 50's or more likely the 40's, in a sheet that was folded among others in a notebook.

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by txomsy

[ardene]

So, if I don't expose the written text to sun and water any ink would last for a long time (at least 5 years)?

 

Most probably yes, it will last for far longer than 5 years.

[Uncial]

For me, at least, what we are dealing with most is the change in the nature of cheap, commonly used paper. I've had American school notebooks from the 1970s on which there was no noticeable fading, but in notebooks manufactured in more recent decades there is decided fading, especially with blue inks.

 

It is not relevant to speak of documents surviving for 300 years. Those documents weren't written on cheap paper bought yesterday. And the European schoolchildren weren't writing on the paper I am most likely to write on.

 

A physicist friend reports losing entire readability from American lab notebooks only a year old in which the writing was never exposed to sunlight. Closed notebook on shelf, writing has disappeared. I use the word "American" because it is conceivable that the situation would have been different if he had been using another country's version of an ordinary lab notebook. Then again, in our globalizing world economy, the paper situation may have gone equally downhill everywhere. But perhaps not.

Some biro inks can do this. I've flicked through blank pages of archival material where there was once text. For certain aspects of my job I'm not permitted to use biro at all.

[A Smug Dill]

So, if I don't expose the written text to sun and water any ink would last for a long time (at least 5 years)?

 

 

There is no categorical answer, I'm afraid, if that is what you seek.

 

If you're keen on "permanence", and trust manufacturer's (claims of) compliance and/or certification against independent standards, then seek out inks that meet the requirements of ISO 14145-2 (which is actually a standard for rollerball pens and refills, with which Montblanc claims selected Permanent fountain pen inks in the brand's line up comply), ISO 12757-2 (which is actually a standard for ballpoint pens and refills, with which Rohrer & Klingner claims its Dokumentus line of inks comply), and so on.

 

Or you could just do your own testing with inks of the brands and colours of your choice, to see if they satisfy the requirements of your use case, before deploying those inks in your applications of fountain pens.

[IndieNote]

So, are more saturated inks (dye based only) are more resistant to fading than less saturated inks?

[IndieNote]

And are thicker lines less prone to fading and become more readable in comparison to thin lines?

[ardene]

So, are more saturated inks (dye based only) are more resistant to fading than less saturated inks?

 

As a rule yes.

 

And are thicker lines less prone to fading and become more readable in comparison to thin lines?

 

Not necessarily. Thickness in width does not correspond to putting more dye per paper surface unit on a given paper sheet. Wetter pens will leave more dye on paper than drier pens; there will be more dye stuff to oxidise in the former case and (depending on the paper chemistry) the ink will retain its overall perception of hue for longer.