Bic Blue Biro Pen (circa 60's & 70's)

[AffinityJules]

I have an odd question for which the correct answer, for now, eludes me.

Does anyone here know the correct colour code (or as near as damn it) for the blue ink which Bic used/uses for their biro pens? I don't know whether or not the tone of the ink has changed over the years, but I'm aiming for circa 1960/1970.

Many thanks. . .

Jules.

[stokerg]

Hi Jules,

Tricky question and i've tried looking online but haven't found anything helpful.

If you've got a sample of the ink on paper, you could take a photo and open in to Affinity and use the colour picker to pick up the colour.

Hopefully someone else will be able to give you a better answer  

 

[AffinityJules]

1 hour ago, stokerg said:

Hi Jules,

Tricky question and i've tried looking online but haven't found anything helpful.

If you've got a sample of the ink on paper, you could take a photo and open in to Affinity and use the colour picker to pick up the colour.

Hopefully someone else will be able to give you a better answer  

 

Thanks, stokerg.

I actually thought of taking a picture or a scan and then open it in AF - good idea just as long as the modern ink is of the same hue? But then again I'm probably being all nit-picky and should just do it.

I also tried online but found nothing useful. . .yet!

[gdenby]

I used Bic's for lots of stuff during that time period, but stopped using the blue because it faded/discolored so badly. I switched to the black because it was a little more stable.  I just now dug into my "archive," but none of the old pens were blue. All of the drawings I still have are in black. My recollection on the blacks was that while they were somewhat less likely to fade, and turn a purple-ish color, I would buy them by the pack because they varied slightly from batch to batch, just like the blues.

Looking on the web, I noticed the Wikipedia article on the ball point pen. There is a close up there of a bic ball w. blue ink. There are a couple of places where a good sample might be made. There are also links to the most common colors used as the dyes. Prussian blue seems to match well.

[AffinityJules]

6 minutes ago, gdenby said:

I used Bic's for lots of stuff during that time period, but stopped using the blue because it faded/discolored so badly. I switched to the black because it was a little more stable.  I just now dug into my "archive," but none of the old pens were blue. All of the drawings I still have are in black. My recollection on the blacks was that while they were somewhat less likely to fade, and turn a purple-ish color, I would buy them by the pack because they varied slightly from batch to batch, just like the blues.

Looking on the web, I noticed the Wikipedia article on the ball point pen. There is a close up there of a bic ball w. blue ink. There are a couple of places where a good sample might be made. There are also links to the most common colors used as the dyes. Prussian blue seems to match well.

Thanks, gdenby. That sounds pretty useful.

I'll check it out.

[carl123]

I think this was a Bic pen poster advert done in 1961 or 1962 and shows the 4 Bic pen colours used on the left. 

You can scribble on the right to try to match the blue

(Those pens were not perfect so you might want to add some Random Accumulation Jitter to the brush to simulate that)

[AffinityJules]

4 minutes ago, carl123 said:

I think this was a Bic pen poster advert done in 1961 or 1962 and shows the 4 Bic pen colours used on the left. 

You can scribble on the right to try to match the blue

(Those pens were not perfect so you might want to add some Random Accumulation Jitter to the brush to simulate that)

Wow! I don't know where you got this from - but it's more than useful, it's hit the nail on the head.

Many thanks. . .I'll try it out