But a potential solution arrived in the creation of movable-type printing by Bi Sheng in AD, which used ceramic materials and also wood, although the latter was later abandoned.
By the 12th century, bronze movable type was being used in China, and this was soon emulated in Korea, with many printed books being produced. Europe came relatively late, and independently of China, to this revolution. Between and , Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith, developed techniques to cast letters using a hand mould. This made the mass production of letters cheap enough to be economically viable for a complete book.
The printing press Gutenberg built in Mainz in was joined by the development of more presses across Europe by To go with the metal type of the printing press, Gutenberg also had to formulate a new kind of oil-based ink that was more suitable for adhering to metal. This ink was carbon-based, but also contained copper, lead and titanium. It has been described as more similar to a varnish than ink.
The arrival of the printing press made the written word far more widespread than ever before, and its use for printing bibles has been cited as a major influence of the Reformation, since more people could read the word of God themselves rather than rely on books owned only by religious leaders.
But printing was still very much in the hands of an elite few. It wasn't until the advent of the typewriter in the s that the ability to print became viable for business communication, and this required yet another development in ink.
The Hansen Writing Ball typewriter was invented in and went into mass production in , followed by models from a number of other manufacturers. In most cases, typewriters relied on an ink-soaked ribbon of cloth. The pigmented ink was designed to stay moist on the ribbon through the addition of castor oil, but it would dry once it contacted paper. Later designs, in particular IBM's Selectric typewriter, used ribbons of pigment-coated polymer tape.
In both cases, the impact of the type transfers the ink to the paper. Where did ink come from, what is ink made from and who does ink think it is are all questions that get answered. Ink has its origins around years ago, and was invented by both the Egyptians and the Chinese around the same time. As far as components go, ink is made up of two key parts: the pigment and the carrier. The pigment is the dye itself, and is what is delivered by the vessel to the paper or printing medium.
Many blue inks introduced in the late 19th century and early 20th century are also affected, but the methylene blues found today are generally not readily affected. Methylene blue cane into use as a writing ink not before This is almost a decade after Baeyer discovered artificial indigo , which quickly replaced natural indigo as a dye colorant in writing inks. It is also well after the first of the alizarin blue inks were created in Because of the marked changes in the blue coloring used in writing fluids that began in the last quarter of the 19th century, it is possible to distinguish letters written by the earlier fluids, and when a letter is written in the later colorant know that it is a forgery.
By the turn of the 20th century, the Prussian blue writing ink had already dropped out of use. The next major development in blue-black inks was the introduction of nigrosine ink, a coal tar die derivative. This ink is a stain obtained by dissolving nigrosine in water to create a suspension rather than a solution. Many nigrosine inks both black and blue can be identified by microscopic examination, for the lines have dark outer edges, like a black border, in addition to a peculiar metallic luster.
See illustration 4. This dark edge is different in character from the nib edge found with earlier inks. Of course, these inks also react differently under black or ultraviolet light than do the earlier iron nutgall inks. Nigrosine ink was first produced commercially in , and its use in letters purported to be of an earlier date than that is a sure sign of fakery.
In fact, nigrosine inks should not really be found on letters prior to the issue adhesives. The nearly black color actually a very dark lilac that does not change or oxidize over time, although it may dim through exposure to light produced when the ink is first used was one of its key selling points. Other advantages are that it flows freely and does not corrode the pen. However, it never does reach the same deep black shade of a good iron nutgall ink and has the major disadvantage in being easily affected by wetting-it runs freely if dampened, one test that can be used in philatelic expertizing.
Ink eradicators also easily affect it. Thus, it never received the popularity among businesses that it did among private citizens, another distinction that helps in expertizing. The last quarter of the 19th century saw the introduction of a number of other synthetic ink colorants. Among these were the reddish eosines , the sulphide inks such as sulphaniline black, the alizarin group , which includes artificial madder, alizarin blue , and the anilines.
The earliest of the anilines was a mauve color discovered in , but apparently not used for a number of years philatelically. The Hussey post was an early user of the handstamp inks, and he uses this color in late He appears to be using a synthetic blue ink by The change in colorants had a definite effect upon the writing inks and 20th century inks can be differentiated from those used on letters in the classic period.
The change is already noticeable by the turn of the century. A survey of mail made at that time shows the following proportions:. The logwood proportion continued to decline through the ensuing years, but there was also some falloff in nigrosine inks. Another change in ink technology has given us the quick dry inks. The suggestion that an alkaline ink with potassium carbonate might serve as the basis for a quick-drying ink was made as early as , but the first patent dates to , with commercial production probably a few years later.
The early quick-dry inks used an azo dyestuff for colorant. These inks, which are found today, contain copper or vanadium compounds and probably were not in commercial production before about They resemble the dyestuff inks and do not undergo oxidation reactions. As noted earlier ballpoint pens were first sold domestically at Gimbels in They used an ink based on olein, which is still being used by some of the cheaper ballpoints today.
This is because of the oily nature of the inks. An improvement came in , when a polyethylene glycol type of ink was introduced. This was a much better product. The olein inks can be made to run readily through the use of a petroleum ether test, while the glycols are relatively resistant.
This makes it possible to differentiate fairly easily between these two products. Such differentiation may be important to collectors of contemporary postal history but are outside the scope of this study. More recent formulations contain multiple dyestuffs rather than single colorants, and this also helps to differentiate them. The following year a newer version that permitted shading came on the market.
Top shows early ballpoint writing, The bottom shows the back of the sheet. Bottom shows typical thicknesses due to irregular ink flow. Covers were first faked back in the s. However, the real wave of cover fakery is far more modern. There was a major wave of faking about and again about World War I, but because covers were not collected to the same extent they are today the incentive to fake them was far lower.
The major periods of fakery that normally have to be watched are the mids, the late s and early s during which a sophisticated group of fakes was produced , and today. While the earliest fakes are more dangerous simply because they have been around so long and some have become accepted, they can be detected because of the use of the wrong inks just as readily as the more modern fakes. The change in both inks and writing instruments that took place after the early classic period of postal history give us ready clues to pick out bad material.
It is for this reason that it seems so incredible that the late s fakes passed for as long as they did. Fakery is again on the rise, spurred by the huge price increase for classic postal history of the late s and early s. At the moment there are millions of dollars of fake grills, fancy cancels, and covers being readied for market to unsuspecting collectors. Organized crime has also entered the field, so knowing what you are buying and from whom becomes increasingly important.
Thurs, they have to create covers from scratch from old papers and this means faking writing inks. For this reason it is important to know inks and their dates of use. Since the modern inks are almost entirely made with synthetic components-a notable difference from the inks used originally in the classic pre period-the dates and changes notes here can clue you as to what to examine. It is not widely known that the government maintains an ink bank in the Treasury Department, which is available to the Internal Revenue Service and other authorities, and which contains almost every ink manufactured since Since most forging of philatelic material was done after this date, insofar as classic covers are concerned, the existence of such a resource can be helpful in ascertaining whether an ink is modern.
An expertizing problem arises when the faker has added something to a genuine cover. Frequently pen marks are used to aid in this process and to tie added stamps to the cover. A number of points can indicate when something is not quite right. This occurs because the paper has been rendered more porous through abrasion. Because of that people started using quills - pens made from molted flight feathers of large birds.
These pens were also made by making a point at thicker end but feathers were cured before the use and could maintain the point longer. They were popular in the Western World from the 6th to the 19th century until steel pens appeared. Metal nibs for dip pens were used in Ancient Rome but were not popular until they were mass produced in 19th century.
Pens with reservoirs were known since 10th century but were not widely used. In 17th century, inventor Daniel Schwenter made a pen made from two quills that held the ink inside instead of being dipped into inkwell. End of the 19th century saw also the first ballpoint pen which was, when modernized, even more practical and cheaper than fountain pen.
0コメント