There has been some discussion recently in Fountain Pen Geeks about vintage inks of which I have several. I use most of them. One or two have been a sad failure through settling out and though I’ve tried mixing them and even boiling it has been impossible to return them to their original strength. Luckily all the others are as good as they were when new.
This Swan Blue/Black ink bottle was full when I bought it some years ago. It has been my go-to ink ever since. I decant it into my normal-sized elephant bottle.
Some feared that old inks would have mould and maybe some do but not any of mine. If the cap is secure the inks should be free of mould. I think that mould is more of a problem in modern inks.
Anyway I take a special delight in filling my Swans with the ink that was intended for them.
(I managed to include our Peugeot 3008 in the background. Aren’t modern cars boring? Reliable and durable but boring.)
Goodwriterspens's Blog 
Its hard to resist a nice old ink so it would be interesting to know if your failures are a consistent make that I should avoid? I will never get through all of my ink, but I’m sure I will be tempted again.
Blue black is my favourite and I even bought some modern Registrars ink a couple of years ago,
Thanks for the blog
Simon
PS are you sure that is a normal sized elephant, it looks rather small to me?
My pleasure, Simon. The two inks I have had failures with are Webster’s Diamine Blue-Black and a Stephens red. Not consistent though, as I have another Stephens red that is perfect. Both of the failures were with material settling out. Likewise, I have enough ink to float a battleship but that doesn’t stop me looking!
I love that Swan bottle, I am a huge fan of everything vintage fountain pen. I have prints of pen adverts from the 30s in my room, they are beautiful!
I have a collection of Swan ads. I should post about them more often.
I would love to see them. I print mine out on printer paper, but the originals look best!
One of these days…