The Ink Is The Thing

I like to use vintage inks in my vintage pens. I have a decent supply to vintage Skrip, Quink, and Carters Inks.  Some vintage bottles were photographed and discussed in these previous articles ~

Ink Spots –  January 23, 2008

The Story Your Ink Bottle Tells – November 3, 2010

Whenever I get the opportunity to pick up some full bottles of vintage inks, I jump at the opportunity.  Just such an opportunity arose last week and I snapped up these two bottles of vintage Waterman’s Ink.

It is not all that unusual to find vintage ink bottles, but to find previously unopened ones is more difficult.  I have seen advertisements for these inks in the 1940s and they are the famous Waterman “tip-fill bottles” that can be tilted to the side by themselves when filling to get deeper into the bottle as it reduces.  The same shape is used today by Waterman.

Below is a Waterman Timeline of Tip-Fill bottles that includes a current Florida Blue bottle on the far right ~

Other colors besides these two that were produced in the US were Permanent Blue Black, Permanent Black, Aztec Brown, Tropic Green, South Seas Blue, and Carnation Red.

If your hunts in the wild for Fountain Pens come up dry, keep an eye out for bottles.  They are hidden gems…

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