Originally Posted by
corgicoupe
It is my understanding that inks made by pen companies are generally considered safe for vintage pens,
Generally, perhaps; but I wouldn't make that assumption
generally with respect to the hundreds of
PenBBS fountain pen ink colours. For consumers outside of Chinese-speaking countries and/or who don't understand Chinese, it's rather difficult to find digestible information on which of those inks have which properties. It took me quite a bit of effort to find this:
Source: ezbuy
The text is rendered as part of the image on that page, and so isn't readily searchable by commonly used Web search engines. It states,
The following are pigment inks that are waterproof and UV fade-resistant:
54, 56, 60, 63, 64, 65, 71, 72, 88, 97, 99, 112, 130, 180, 228, 233, 257, 270, 285
The following inks contain glittering metallic particles:
103, 111, 134, 140, 153, 156, 177, 218, 226, 235, 236, 258, 261, 273, 277, 279, 287, 288, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321
Platinum makes a number of pigment inks as well as the Classic Ink line of iron-gall inks. I can't vouch for how safe they are to use in vintage pens.
In my experience, some of the
Sailor Shikiori (dye) inks, e.g. Nioisumire and Yonaga, are pretty nasty if allowed to dry inside a pen. Then, there are its Kiwaguro, Seiboku and Souboku pigment inks.
Pelikan has its Fount India black ink which is a pigment ink.
Hero, 234 carbon black ink and 232 iron-gall blue-black. I vaguely remember reading that
Montblanc has a couple of troublesome inks, too.
So I don't think blindly trusting a pen manufacturer's brand to only make ‘safe’ inks is advisable, especially when to be used in vintage pens not of their own make.
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