General historical pens and inks question
 

Does anyone know of any good online or other articles or information about identifying the various types of inks and pens over the years? Quill to ballpoint to felt tip, etc.

I'm not trying to identify an autograph or start a forgery ring, just am interested in learning the details of identifying the type of pen and ink used to make writing. In fact, my interest has incidental at best connection to collectible autographs. I earlier did similar research into identifying art paints (oil, tempra, etc) and the pen ink is part of the same project

Cheers.

This might help.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa100197.htm

Thank you. I'm focusing on the ink appearance not the physical pens themselves, but will look it over.

For all I know I've broken some secret 'autograph authenticators club' information code of silence, but, as I said, my interest isn't on Babe Ruth or Gary Cooper autographs. Closer to you find an old unsigned sketch in an antique story and are wondering what is the medium.

If you don't believe me, and I'm sure you do, this is a little thing I wrote on tempera paint: [URL="Thank you. I'm focusing on the ink appearance not the physical pens themselves, but thanks. For all I know I've broken some secret 'autograph authenticators club' information code of silence, but, as I said, my interest isn't on Babe Ruth or Gary Cooper autographs. Closer to you find an old unsigned sketch in an antique story and are wondering what is the medium. If you don't believe me, and I'm sure you do, this is a little thing I wrote on [URL="Thank you. I'm focusing on the ink appearance not the physical pens themselves, but thanks. For all I know I've broken some secret 'autograph authenticators club' information code of silence, but, as I said, my interest isn't on Babe Ruth or Gary Cooper autographs. Closer to you find an old unsigned sketch in an antique story and are wondering what is the medium. If you don't believe me, and I'm sure you do, this is a little thing I wrote on tempera paint: Thank you. I'm focusing on the ink appearance not the physical pens themselves, but thanks.

For all I know I've broken some secret 'autograph authenticators club' information code of silence, but, as I said, my interest isn't on Babe Ruth or Gary Cooper autographs. Closer to you find an old unsigned sketch in an antique story and are wondering what is the medium.

If you don't believe me, and I'm sure you do, this is a little thing I wrote on tempera paint: [URL="Thank you. I'm focusing on the ink appearance not the physical pens themselves, but thanks. For all I know I've broken some secret 'autograph authenticators club' information code of silence, but, as I said, my interest isn't on Babe Ruth or Gary Cooper autographs. Closer to you find an old unsigned sketch in an antique story and are wondering what is the medium. If you don't believe me, and I'm sure you do, this is a little example I wrote on tempera paints: http://cycleback.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/tempera-paintings/

Oh, and any ink stuff I write won't be published online, if that's a concern. The tempera blog piece was of general art history interest so was so was posted publicly. Plus it involved a pretty painting.

I've written on so many and diverse art and artifact topics, general interest to obscure, I think it would fairly boggle the mind. I used to be an article writer for a British art history encyclopedia, so 'types of writing inks' is just a minor drop in the bucket from my point of view.

The bit I know about inks is that they're not particularly seperable from the pens. The same ink that works great with a quill might be ok but not great with a more modern fountain pen, and simply horrible in a ballpoint or marker. If I recall it right, appropriate ink was one thing that held back ballpoint pens.

There should be some info out there about Iron gall ink since it is easy to identify and fell out of favor around a certain time. (I forget when)

I know that the exact formulations of printing inks were closely held trade secrets for a long time.

For more modern stuff you might find some info on Google patents. Don't bother with USPTO, their search is very challenging, and only goes back to 1972. I looked for hours for the patent the guy who owned my house got around 1909 and never found it. Once google patents got going it took under 5 minutes.

Steve B

OK Try this.
http://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk/blog/...istory-of-ink/

OK Try this.
did it again

Yeah, I was having a tough time trying to put my link, and I'm not inept at those types of things. I think the board was having a technical issue this afternoon

...

...

...