Jacques Herbin in vintage pens?

[es9]

An exceptionally kind relative bought me a bottle of Jacques Herbin Bleu de Minuit. It’s a beautiful blue, but is it super saturated or otherwise unsafe to use in vintage pens? I typically only use Diamine or Waterman. 

[txomsy]

Do not pay me much attention, there are those who know way more than me.

 

From my point of view, why not? I've forgotten an inked pen many a time to find later the ink had dried. I've bought vintage pens with dried ink inside. And all I usually did was reload them with ink or (recently) load them with some tap water and use them again. For a piston filler, that may have meant a lot of dried ink. But that was in the old, dark days of ignorance and one-man, one-pen (maybe two), those prehistoric, pre-Internet times long past.

 

I suspect I'm not alone in this forgetting a loaded pen business. The last MB I bought must have been forgotten loaded and reloaded with ink many times, because when I loaded it with water, the ink window didn't clean. Wrote it out and reloaded with water... maybe ten times before the ink window started to look clear. So, it must have gone through some super-hyper-saturated inking more than once in its lifetime... much as my own pens before I -supposedly- learnt better. For me a pen was always to be used with ink, and I expected the new ink to wash the old ink out.

 

But I may be wrong. That's why I'm more careful nowadays, although I ain't sure if it is really needed, I suppose being clean will not harm and may do some good.

[aurore]

Vintage pens is a very vague term. For instance while 50s Pelikan 400 can withstand nearly any ink, rubber sac inks have been reported having troubles with some very saturated (heavy loaded with dye) or eventually very alkaline inks. 

[Arkanabar]

Goulet describes this as a pigmented ink.

[es9]

7 hours ago, aurore said:

Vintage pens is a very vague term. For instance while 50s Pelikan 400 can withstand nearly any ink, rubber sac inks have been reported having troubles with some very saturated (heavy loaded with dye) or eventually very alkaline inks. 

 

Almost all of my pens do indeed use latex rubber sacs.  

 

4 hours ago, Arkanabar said:

Goulet describes this as a pigmented ink.

 

I saw that, but was not entirely sure what to make of it.  

[Olya]

I think Goulet made a mistake there. It happens.

The best course would be to contact Goulet and J Herbin and enquire.

 

That said, this is the first time I hear a claim that it's a pigment ink and the Herbin site does not state that it is one. Herbin sells a multitude of ink varieties and they usually say quite clearly what type it is and with what kind of pen it can be used with (e.g. "dip pen only").

 

Overall, Herbin inks are very safe to use with vintage pens, I have done so, but as noted above, if it is a sac pen for instance, it is good to know what kind of sac.

I wouldn't hesitate to use Bleu de Minuit with any pen though.

[mizgeorge]

7 minutes ago, Olya said:

I think Goulet made a mistake there. It happens.

The best course would be to contact Goulet and J Herbin and enquire.

 

That said, this is the first time I hear a claim that it's a pigment ink and the Herbin site does not state that it is one. Herbin sells a multitude of ink varieties and they usually say quite clearly what type it is and with what kind of pen it can be used with (e.g. "dip pen only").

 

Overall, Herbin inks are very safe to use with vintage pens, I have done so, but as noted above, if it is a sac pen for instance, it is good to know what kind of sac.

I wouldn't hesitate to use Bleu de Minuit with any pen though.

Totally agree with this - I'd have no problem with any non-shimmery Herbin ink in a vintage pen, but might want to have a test run with something I wasn't too worried about (limited ink, write, flush, clean) before using it in something precious.

[Karmachanic]

Herbin has been making inks for 350 years. It's safe to say that they have got the ink thing figured out. Even the 1798 and 1670 are safe in vintage pens if one lets the 'bits' settle to the bottom of the bottle, or uses a coffee filtre and decants.

[es9]

4 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

... Even the 1798 and 1670 are safe in vintage pens if one lets the 'bits' settle to the bottom of the bottle, or uses a coffee filtre and decants.

Interesting. I’ve never done the coffee filter thing. That renders otherwise unsafe inks safe for use in vintage pens that use latex sacs? 

 

[Karmachanic]

58 minutes ago, es9 said:

Interesting. I’ve never done the coffee filter thing. That renders otherwise unsafe inks safe for use in vintage pens that use latex sacs?

 

The inks aren't unsafe. It's the glittery bits that can gum up the works. One can let the glittery bits settle at the bottom of the bottle and draw ink directly into ones vintage pen. Or filtre them out, if preferred.

 

If you're going to do the filtre thing, wet the paper first. You'll lose less link.

[ENewton]

I haven't seen the need to filter out glitter from J Herbin Amethyste de l'Oural, because the ink has so little glitter in it that I don't see any even in my broadest italic nibs on Tomoe River paper.  However, the packaging has a sticker on it that reads as follows:

 

CAUTION:  Highly Saturated Ink

 

- Clean nib and section w/ damp cloth to avoid potential staining.

- Don't leave ink in fountain pen reservoir.

 

On this basis, I would avoid using Amethyste, in particular, in a pen with a sac.  By contrast, I have used J Herbin Poussiere de Lune in vintage pens for years with no ill effects.

 

I think this is one of many cases in which one can't generalize about inks produced by a specific manufacturer.  For example, the original poster mentions using Diamine.  I have only one Diamine ink, and I would never put it into a pen with a sac or any other pen I especially valued.  

[inkstainedruth]

I haven't tried Bleu de Minuit, but J Herbin Eclat de Saphir is my go-to ink to put in a Parker 61 with a capillary filler -- to the point that I've considered actually buying a 100 ml bottle of it.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[es9]

Thanks, Ruth! Do you run it through a coffee filter?

[Olya]

22 minutes ago, es9 said:

Thanks, Ruth! Do you run it through a coffee filter?

There's no need for that for Eclat de Saphir or Bleu de Minuit or any of the other standard line inks.

 

The coffee filter thing is used for just the glitter inks, to filter out the glitter bits and have just the "clean" dye ink remain.

 

The only glitter inks J Herbin offers are the 1670 and 1798 lines.

[inkstainedruth]

No, why would I?  

A capillary filler is basically a giant teflon sponge -- you remove the barrel and stick the back end of the filler in the ink bottle and let it just soak up the ink for about 15 seconds.  It holds a huge amount of ink, and is the simplest to use fill system ever devised -- but you don't want to use anything super saturated or pigmented (the idea of using a shimmer ink in a 61 is just mind-boggling and frightening, because they are sort of a PITA to flush thoroughly -- I tend to flush just enough distilled water through when the pen runs dry to get the ink flowing, and then continue to use the pen repeatedly until the ink is too diluted to be illegible.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Karmachanic]

17 minutes ago, Olya said:

The coffee filter thing is used for just the glitter inks, to filter out the glitter bits and have just the "clean" dye ink remain.

 

The only glitter inks J Herbin offers are the 1670 and 1798 lines.

 

 

Why didn't I think of that? 🤪

[A Smug Dill]

On 1/1/2021 at 7:28 AM, es9 said:

That renders otherwise unsafe inks safe for use in vintage pens that use latex sacs? 

 

Of course not, I'd say. If you consider clogging by particles to be ‘unsafe’ — which would apply to vintage and modern pens alike, even if you only/primarily have vintage pens — because it results in pen failure, then filtering out the particles will address that particular mode of pen failure but not any other (cf. ‘otherwise’). It is not going to change the chemical composition of the dyes and solvents in the ink, or how they will react with latex, celluloid and whatever other material that may come into contact with them.

 

See:

• https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/304024-inks-that-eat-sacs/
• https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/242452-what-liquefied-this-sac/?do=findComment&comment=2646937
• The first two results of this Google search (for Binder+latex+sac+experiment), being external blog articles to which it would be against FPN forum rules for me to link directly

If your goal or priority is to be as safe and kind to your vintage pens as possible, then the easiest and best strategy is to constrain yourself more narrowly than is strictly required (or ‘safe’) in the choice of inks.

 

If your goal or priority is to have as wide a choice of inks as possible without damaging your vintage pens, then the strategy should be to invest time, effort and money (in expendable ‘consumable’ ink and spare sacs) in experimenting with as many inks as you're interested in using, to determine for yourself. There is no established, comprehensive and free-to-consult database of which inks are ‘safe’ — especially to your satisfaction — to use, and there is no silver bullet for eliminating the risk without willingly curtailing your own freedom of choice in the market.