General historical pens and inks question

[steve B]

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