Ink for Checks

[GiaSophia]

I am fairly new to fountain pens and wanted to get thoughts on what type of inks should be used for writing checks. I know most people probably pay their bills online, but do you need to use iron gall or waterproof inks on checks? Any recommendations?

[FredRydr]

I use iron gall ink. I have three in my ink box: https://fpgeeks.com/forum/showthread...l=1#post198925

Fred

[carlos.q]

I use MB Permanent Blue which is ISO 14145-2 certified for permanence. It also shades beautifully!

[Scooby921]

I use MB Permanent Blue which is ISO 14145-2 certified for permanence. It also shades beautifully!

Same here. I keep MB Perm Blue in a pen for anything requiring an "official" signature.

[FredRydr]

Goodness, I bought a bottle of MB permanent blue, and it's been unopened for a couple of years!

Fred

[Paddler]

I use one of several Noodler's bulletproof inks. Upper Ganges Blue is the current favorite.

[grainweevil]

Can't remember the last time I had call to write a cheque, but for permanence I'm a fan of Platinum Carbon Black.

I might have suggested Koh-i-noor Document Blue, but that's a ink for Czechs.

[inklord]

I use either Sailor "Sei-Boku" (a slightly tealish blue pigmented ink) or Rohrer & Klingner "Salix" (a very well behaved iron gall ink).
Both are conservative enough for business, but also exciting to use for the FP aficionado.
Both are also not only well behaved (though checks are generally made from high-quality paper) even on the poorest of papers, but kind to your fountain pen and R&K Salix is very easy to clean from pens as long as it has not dried. That being said, all of the inks mentioned by other members above are equally valid choices.

[FredRydr]

I might have suggested Koh-i-noor Document Blue, but that's a ink for Czechs.

Ohhhh...

Fred

[The Good Captain]

Noodler's 'Prime of the Commons' or El Lawrence. Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black. Montblanc Permanent Blue. Or one of the Schneider ISO ballpoints. Whichever comes to hand first!

[KKay]

Noodler's-Bad Black Moccasin or Bad Belted Kingfisher. You WILL need a XF-F pen though, as it does have some spread. I would also clean the pen out within a week.

[sharmon202]

Sei Boku is great.

[Chemyst]

I am fairly new to fountain pens and wanted to get thoughts on what type of inks should be used for writing checks. I know most people probably pay their bills online, but do you need to use iron gall or waterproof inks on checks? Any recommendations?

First off, criminal alternation of personal checks is not a problem on any meaningful scale. The probability of it happening to you is so fantastically low that you are many, many times more likely to be killed accidentally on the way to mailing your payment than you are of having your check altered. "Check washing" as it existed, referred to the process of criminals altering or bleaching and re-printing state issued benefits checks. Optimally, criminals would intercept bundles of mail containing hundreds of benefit checks (unemployment, pension, disability, etc) which were linked to huge (multi-million dollar) bank accounts, alter the amounts and payee and then cash them quickly in batches before the deception could be discovered. Personal checks just are not worth the trouble, since they get mailed singly (instead of hundreds or thousands at a time), are linked to your checking account (with a limit of hundreds or thousands of dollars, instead of multiple millions) and you are very likely to rapidly discover any irregularities.

That said, if you need to send in a check and you believe people out there are going to intercept and alter it; then you really should use two separate inks:
1.) A strong link for the payee and amount. The ink used here should stand up to bleaching attempts, making it challenging to alter who gets your money and how much they get.
2.) A weak link for your signature. This ink should run, fade and wash away upon the slightest disturbance. During the bleaching process, criminals try to protect the signature line with various materials. Make this harder for them by using the most ephemeral ink you can find.

Most of the suggestions so far in this thread meet the criteria for a strong link, but they are inappropriate for your signature if you are looking to enhance security. Your signature would be best in something like a washable blue or another transient ink.

HTH!

[GiaSophia]

I appreciate all of the feedback. I've placed an order for a bunch of samples for everyone's suggestions.

[mrcharlie]

I generally use Sheaffer Jet Black or Sheaffer Blue Black (I usually have at least one of those inked at any given time). Over the past 2 or 3 years I have also used Sei Boku, Platinum Carbon Black, Hero #234 Black (a carbon black), and Hero #232 Blue Black (an IG ink). And possibly one or two other "permanent" or "bulletproof" inks I've had inked up during that time.

All of these are not easily washed off the check with water. That said, I agree with the above statements about how unlikely it is that anyone would try to alter your check. These days it would be much easier to use the account number and routing number from your check to steal money from your account via electronic check than to fake a physical check. If I didn't have a water resistant ink at the ready, I'd just use whatever I have inked in black or dark blue, but I almost always have a water resistant ink available for addressing envelopes.

Even though I have extremely inexpensive checks, all the FP inks I've used have looked fine on them.

p.s. I've had people working at a bank get apoplectic when presented with a check made out using purple ink (made out by my mom, a former bank teller and admin assistant, who thinks they are idiots). They seemed to think their ocr check reading machines wouldn't work with it. There was in fact no problem. Hell, our money order machine where I work uses a purple "security ribbon" so any bank that couldn't process a purple ink check type thing would be a problem. Nevertheless, the bank personnel were having a fit.

So you might want either avoid or purposely choose a purple ink, depending on how you feel about upsetting bank tellers (no matter how upset they are, purple ink is perfectly legally valid).

[Morgaine]

In my teenage years, I bought a lot of fashion cartridge pens and used the standard colourful universal cartridges from WHSmith - I loved writing cheques in green, magenta and the brown!

[welch]

I am fairly new to fountain pens and wanted to get thoughts on what type of inks should be used for writing checks. I know most people probably pay their bills online, but do you need to use iron gall or waterproof inks on checks? Any recommendations?

First off, criminal alternation of personal checks is not a problem on any meaningful scale. The probability of it happening to you is so fantastically low that you are many, many times more likely to be killed accidentally on the way to mailing your payment than you are of having your check altered. "Check washing" as it existed, referred to the process of criminals altering or bleaching and re-printing state issued benefits checks. Optimally, criminals would intercept bundles of mail containing hundreds of benefit checks (unemployment, pension, disability, etc) which were linked to huge (multi-million dollar) bank accounts, alter the amounts and payee and then cash them quickly in batches before the deception could be discovered. Personal checks just are not worth the trouble, since they get mailed singly (instead of hundreds or thousands at a time), are linked to your checking account (with a limit of hundreds or thousands of dollars, instead of multiple millions) and you are very likely to rapidly discover any irregularities.

That said, if you need to send in a check and you believe people out there are going to intercept and alter it; then you really should use two separate inks:
1.) A strong link for the payee and amount. The ink used here should stand up to bleaching attempts, making it challenging to alter who gets your money and how much they get.
2.) A weak link for your signature. This ink should run, fade and wash away upon the slightest disturbance. During the bleaching process, criminals try to protect the signature line with various materials. Make this harder for them by using the most ephemeral ink you can find.

Most of the suggestions so far in this thread meet the criteria for a strong link, but they are inappropriate for your signature if you are looking to enhance security. Your signature would be best in something like a washable blue or another transient ink.

HTH!

Think of it this way: if there had been a market for inks that could not be removed, ever, by any means, then Parker and Sheaffer would have developed it by 1950. They were big companies, each with an engineering staff, and each with a desire to get an edge on the other. To get a sense of their competition, glance at EBay for Parker Quink advertisements during WW2. Buy Quink with Solv-X, they said, to extend the life of rubber ink-sacs, thereby saving rubber and helping to win the war.

Write checks -- the few -- with any ink you like. Back around 2010, there were several discussions on FPN about "check washing" and the need to use ink that binds to paper/wood/clothing. Super-permanent inks seemed then, and still seem, like a solution in search of a problem. The sales and marketing people in my office were old bankers, so I asked them

- Most were baffled. They had never heard of criminal gangs, perhaps gangs of drug addicts, breaking open mailboxes to search for letters containing checks.

- Two older colleagues laughed. They each had about 40 years in banking. "I remember that stuff", said one, "from way back. More than twenty years ago. We used to print up trays of checks for each company that had to pay dividends or interest on bonds. Heaven help you if a thief slipped in and a couple hundred dividend checks. We started printing on safety paper that would turn colors if someone tried to lift a 'pay-to' name from a check'. But almost all payments are sent electronically now".

- If you are still worried, order "safety checks". They use the same paper that banks began using.

- Do a web search on "check-washing". The most recent thing I found was a warning about check-washing in 1998.

- If you worry about a piece of mail being caught in the rain, use a ballpoint. It's cheaper and simpler than dedicating a pen to a water-proof, snow-proof, fire-proof, or bomb-proof ink.

[timbre70]

Rub a candle over the writing. Problem solved.

[grainweevil]

- If you worry about a piece of mail being caught in the rain, use a ballpoint. It's cheaper and simpler than dedicating a pen to a water-proof, snow-proof, fire-proof, or bomb-proof ink.

I believe if cost and simplicity is a factor, you may be in the wrong hobby...

It's interesting there's this focus on the security aspect. Personally I use a water resistant ink because, owing to the ubiquitous ballpoint, anyone handling said cheque is going to assume it's water resistant. I don't want their potential carelessness giving me a financial mess to clean up because the info on the cheque has been inadvertently rendered illegible by someone's cup of tea or sweaty palms.

[welch]

"Cost and simplicity"? Ha!! Good point! (Although I returned to fountain pens partly as therapy for my hand, which cramps up when I write more than a couple of sentences with a ballpoint. If only I could count the too-many pens as a medical expense)