Permanent Archival Ink Recommendations?

[arcfide]

On 2/3/2022 at 6:18 AM, Mech-for-i said:

ISO standard do not help cause the criteria for those permanence are based upon document being kept in document safe environment

 

This is not true. There is a UV lightfastness rating for the ISO 14145-2 documentary ink standard. The standard does not require that the ink cannot ever fade, but it does include a standard of a certain degree of lightfastness. 

[amberleadavis]

16 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

Oh and I forgot the most permanent ink of all - Noodler's KTC - it is Armageddon Proof. It is water proof, fade proof, dirt proof and well, everything else proof.

 

16 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Yeah.  Everything proof

My two four ounce bottles of KTC are your fault....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

 

Oh, but he did want a DARK Blue-Black......

[thorn]

I have been using Diamine Registrars for writing checks, signing papers and a journal for a while. It does turn dark blue to black after a day or so. I also have some Noodler's, it tends to slow down in the pen and I have to wash the pen out really well between changing ink.  I have used some carbon ink and it clogs easily but it is black.

 

I left 1/2 a sheet of paper with several inks in a window with southern exposure for a couple of months during winter, Noodler's, carbon ink and the Diamine Registrars  hold up really well. The other half I left in the dark so I could compare the 2.  I figure it is kind of an accelerated aging since most documents are in the dark 99.9% of the time.

[inkstainedruth]

@amberleadavis-- My old bank didn't blink twice when I signed checks using KTC, any more than they did when I signed checks with Noodler's El Lawrence (and this was a bank which insisted on "blue" or "black" ink only.  The current bank (which bought the old one out) hasn't been quite so strict -- but when we were refinancing the LOC a couple of years ago sort of frowned on the concept of me using purple ink.... 

@thornThat was not my experience with a sample of Diamine Registrars a few years ago.  I'm now wondering if I got a bad (or old) batch -- because it oxidized fairly quickly to a washy blue-grey.  Great shading, but that's all it could be said for it (Akkerman IJzer-galnoten stayed darker for MUCH longer, which is one of the reasons why I'm convinced that even if Diamine does make ink for Akkerman, as people have claimed, they are not just relabeled Diamine inks).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

That was not my experience with a sample of Diamine Registrars a few years ago.  I'm now wondering if I got a bad (or old) batch -- because it oxidized fairly quickly to a washy blue-grey.

 

Wetness of the ink marks may have a large influence on that. I found these just now on my desk (and am about to throw them out):

 

As you can see, the writing in DRI in on the Week 2 sheet is much darker, because I fiddled with the nibs and feeds after I wasn't happy with Week 1's results. (The whole thing was abandoned after about eight weeks.)

 

[inkstainedruth]

Wow.  My sample of Diamine Registrar's was WAY paler than even your two week mark -- heck, it was paler than the two week point for both R&K Salix and Pelikan 4001 Blue Black, too.  And that was almost straight out of the pen, right after it had been filled. 

Ruth Morrisson aka inksainedruth

[A Smug Dill]

14 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

My sample of Diamine Registrar's was WAY paler than even your two week mark -- heck, it was paler than the two week point for both R&K Salix and Pelikan 4001 Blue Black, too.

 

For clarity: I was going to write one such sheet in the same memo pad every week for a year, to compare how much darker each iron-gall ink in the list would turn after N weeks. I had 15 pens of the same model, each fitted with a spring-loaded inner cap, to combat any ink evaporation through the nib and feed week after week in the meantime. Eventually I figured I cannot account for the effects of either ink evaporation or oxidation that was happening inside the ink cartridges; or whether some of the iron-gall inks would be causing changes to the ‘wetness’ of the nib and feed due drying and coating the insides, or corrosion of the stainless steel, for that matter.

 

So, the paler writing in DRI on the sheets marked Week 1 (and you'll notice it's darker on the bottom sheet than on the top sheet) has been on the page for 364 days, when I scanned them earlier, while the (much darker) writing in DRI on the sheet marked Week 2 has aged on paper only 358 days. The writing appears ‘progressively’ darker because the ink flow rate in that pen changed, and not because of oxidation of the iron-gall.

 

[txomsy]

There are plenty of ink light-fastness comparisons in the forum, just look them up.

 

The ISO standard was intended for archival. And archives are very well known for undergoing all sorts of damages over time, so ink must be pretty bulletproof to be acceptable, which is all the point of the ISO standard.

 

Few inks are ISO certified, but that does not mean one cannot find registrar's ink that is not certified. Pilot Blue-Black, ESSRI, and many others are not certified but often used for permanence (actually ESSRI is a registrar's ink, and chances are your most important life documents were actually written with it if you live in a Christian country: born, dead, marriage certificates, of you, your family, dads, grand dads... and seeing how much of a business there is in verifying ancestors -e.g. for inheritances or family trees- it must comply with pretty tough requirements).

[arcfide]

23 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Wow.  My sample of Diamine Registrar's was WAY paler than even your two week mark -- heck, it was paler than the two week point for both R&K Salix and Pelikan 4001 Blue Black, too.  And that was almost straight out of the pen, right after it had been filled. 

Ruth Morrisson aka inksainedruth

 

If you look at my IG ink lightfastness tests, you'll see that I make a note of this issue. In particular, if you got a sample of the ink, it's very likely that the ink could have precipitated in the sample. I now think that if someone wants to test Registrar's Ink they should just pick up the 30ml bottle, because the chance that a sample will have been exposed to too much air is too great. 

 

Not only does this greatly affect the color on the page, but it also greatly affects the level of lightfastness of the ink. IG ink relies pretty heavily on a decently heavy coating to achieve its best lightfastness. This can be hard in fountain pens where the ink is relatively dry and where some pens might not put down much of a wet line. 

 

 

 

[amberleadavis]

12 hours ago, txomsy said:

There are plenty of ink light-fastness comparisons in the forum, just look them up.

 

 

 

Yep, here on page 1 of this thread.

 

[Greebe]

I apologize for the slow reply.

 

Thanks to all who responded. Lots of good info has been posted.

 

I seem to remember that the Iron Gall inks could damage fountain pens? Is this correct? My main user pen is a Pelikan M800, and I would hate to wreck it.

 

Thanks again.

 

[inkstainedruth]

Modern IG inks are not supposed to do so.  And I have used IG inks in pens with steel nibs and seen no ill-effects (the problem is more with dip pen nibs, which are not stainless steel).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: I did have a vintage bottle (fortunately a small bottle, that I only paid a few bucks for) of an iron gall ink do bad things to the sac in a CON-B converter in one of my Pilot Metropolitans.

But someone here was supposed to be doing an experiment to see how a bottle of modern IG ink do in a vintage Esterbrook J pen without flushing the pen regularly (as in, for longer than a fill or two, IIRC).  Don't know how that testing is going, though.

[N1003U]

I have had good experience with R&K Documentus, 41-400 (dark blue), in my Pelikan pens. That said, I have never left it in a pen for more than a week or so. The ink does seem to be fairly permanent and does clean out of the pen nicely.

[arcfide]

19 hours ago, Greebe said:

I seem to remember that the Iron Gall inks could damage fountain pens?

 

Generally, the steel and gold alloys on modern fountain pens is quite good, and the nibs should not suffer any damage from using an acidic ink. IG inks are acidic, but many other inks are also acidic or alkaline, and not pH-neutral. Generally, this is not considered to be much of a problem. However, on poor nibs with bad metallurgy or on plated nibs that are in constant contact with an IG ink (and some other types of ink as well), that plating can corrode. However, this may or may not be due to their IG nature, but perhaps just their acidic nature, in which case there are many other highly acidic, non-IG inks that could cause the same issues. Just as an example, I believe the dark coating on some Sailor pens is more delicate and sensitive to some inks than others, and some people have reported the dark plating coming off. IIRC, there are also some varieties of pigmented inks that have a reputation for being harder on plated nibs than typical. 

 

In general, there are some inks (some IG inks among them), which are more likely to accelerate the wear and tear on a plated nib over time (though most Rhodium plated gold nibs seem fine, this seems to be specifically plated steel). They may also accelerate wear and tear on plated parts of the pen elsewhere. However, many of these parts are subject to wear and tear anyways. For instance, the plating on Sailor and Platinum pens is known to wear off over time, even without ink contact, and the lacquer on many pens will chip away over time and wear out (I have a Waterman pen that did that as a result of continuous posting over the years). 

 

However, in terms of destroying the functionality of the pen or ruining the nib, unless it is a very poor steel nib, or a dip pen with a non-stainless steel point, you are likely going to be fine. If you have a good gold nib from a reputable manufacturer, such as Pelikan, then you should feel absolutely fine using IG inks. Pelikan offers an IG ink as their standard Blue Black ink, and companies like Platinum ship IG Blue Black ink as their default ink with all of their pens. With high quality fountain pens, it's just not a very big concern at all. You will probably put more wear and tear on the pen with your hand oils and rubbing the pen while using it than you would using an IG ink in the pen. 

[A Smug Dill]

19 hours ago, Greebe said:

I seem to remember that the Iron Gall inks could damage fountain pens? Is this correct?

 

They could. So could numerous other non iron-gall inks.

 

20 hours ago, Greebe said:

My main user pen is a Pelikan M800, and I would hate to wreck it.

 

Two of my Pelikan piston-filler pens are permanently inked with Platinum Classic Ink colours. I haven't noticed any issues yet, and there was no damage to the gold-plated steel nib on the M200 Smoky Quartz for the six or seven months it was used with Khaki Black (until I swapped a gold nib from a M400 into that pen, not because I was wary of potential corrosion, but because I think the steel nib is the better nib, and the prettier M400 deserves the better nib).

 

I'd happily fill my Pelikan M815 with Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black any day.

[AmandaW]

On 2/7/2022 at 9:02 AM, A Smug Dill said:

 

Wetness of the ink marks may have a large influence on that. I found these just now on my desk (and am about to throw them out):

 

As you can see, the writing in DRI in on the Week 2 sheet is much darker, because I fiddled with the nibs and feeds after I wasn't happy with Week 1's results. (The whole thing was abandoned after about eight weeks.)

 

 

Thankyou for showing those. It blows away my assumption that all iron gall inks just turn black. (I couldn't see the point!)

[AmericanMonk]

On 1/31/2022 at 3:07 PM, OCArt said:

please consider Noodler's Baltimore Canyon

I'd be happy to consider that ink!

 

I love Diamine's Skull & Roses range of bright blue with some pop (not entirely unlike your review of Baltimore on HP32), but I am happy to add a new ink or 3 to trade some sheen for some permanence. I'm also looking to add a blue-black. My paperwork doesn't need full protection, such as Noodler's Legal Blue or Lapis, but it is important for them to remain legible if they got, say, wet in the mail.

 

I also don't get to choose the paper. Some ghosting and spread are acceptable but bleed, feathering, and any spread that causes a letterform's counter to fill in (with M and smaller nibs) are not acceptable. If the lines stay crisp with little to no ghosting with a 1.1 Italic nib on most every day papers then it's an absolute winner, but I usually carry a pen with a F nib.

 

I loved Sheaffer's Blue-Black cartridges back when I had some. It shades and behaves well. I'd like to buy something similar—something that I can put in any pen (vs a cartridge) and has some bulletproofness.

 

I have Noodler's Upper Ganges Blue and Tolstoy. They're not bad but a little too pale and unruly to be an alternative to either Skull & Roses or Sheaffer BB. They're charming in wet pens but then feathering, ghosting, and/or long dry times crop up. They behave in dry pens but lose their charm.

 

Enter the following Noodler's inks:

• 54th Mass,
• Blue-Black,
• Navy,
• Bad Blue Heron, and now
• Baltimore Canyon

 

I'm planning on buying three of the above five. Navy is already in my cart, unless someone has a good reason to talk me out of it. But I don't think I need both 54th and Blue-Black. Nor do I think I need both Heron and Baltimore. Are you or @inkstainedruth in a position to compare/contrast these inks? or able to point me in the direction of someone who'd know? Baltimore looks excellent and behaves well on HP32 but is Baltimore Canyon worth the +57% price? Are any of them bad with cheaper papers? Are any (all?) of them similar to Ganges and Tolstoy, where they lose their charm on every day paper?

 

I took a look in the comparison section of this site but with so many dead links and so many mentions of these inks, I wind up spending far too much time on far too little progress. The best I found was this Noodler's Blue comparison. But @bokaba had results that are quite different from other online images (such as these: 54th Mass, Blue-Black, Heron). In Bokaba's comparison, both 54th and Heron look dull (perhaps the bottles weren't shaken first?) compared to the other reviews written on Rhodia. I realize that different cameras, monitors, pens, papers, and Noodler's batches make a difference, so I'm not looking for concrete truths. Their behavior is more important but shading/color richness on common papers would give an ink the edge in a tie.

 

While I have Noodler's inks that can take a while to dry on nicer papers, I have yet to use a Noodler's ink that didn't dry in an acceptable amount of time on common papers. However, I am a lefty so if any of these inks dry slowly on common papers I would like to hear about that, too.

 

I don't care much about whether or not the inks stain a pen or fade in the sun. That's not important for my uses. Nor do I care if they are difficult to clean. I'm used to that.

 

I suspect I'll be a mix of satisfied yet remain curious about other options no matter what I wind up purchasing. If I have to buy all of them and see for myself then I will. But if anyone knows if any of those inks are problematic on common papers then I'd like to hear it. Any thoughts?

[Mayo]

Noodler's X-Feather blue is excellent, if the color is fit for your use. It is a deep blue with some hints of purple. Marketed as "Anti-feathering, Archival, Bullet Proof, Forge Resistant, Water Resistant, Waterproof", and my tests with the ink are consistent with those properties. Though not as "anti feather" or bleed through on some very low quality papers.

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, AmericanMonk said:

If I have to buy all of them and see for myself then I will.

 

That would be ideal, because then you'd be in a position to possess and share apparently uncommon information.  If everyone can contribute their bit of product intelligence of special interest that was not previously available, then the collective knowledge will grow, even if it does not make for an expert system that allows consumers to select the ‘right’ products first time every time, and spend as little (time and money) as possible to acquire maximum user satisfaction.

 

(Obviously, there will be expense and possibly disappointments involved, along the way on the part of early adopters, experimenters and reviewers.)

[OCArt]

Judging by Anderson Pen's ink comparison tool Noodler's Navy is a very dark blue and would work as a blue-black for most applications. Besides there are a lot of BB inks that are permanent such as the many iron gall inks.  I wouldn't be too worried about the price of Baltimore Canyon as the initial investment of any ink bottle will be spread over years of use.

 

My advice would-be to order the one ink you are really sure of and get samples of all the rest including some IG inks such as Diamine Registrars.