The Diary ink is a business ink.....

[SirRobertAnderson]

Interesting.

http://www.nystamp.org/Topic_is_ink.html

Nigrosine ink was first produced commercially in 1867, 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 1869 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 (1874), the sulphide inks (1873) such as sulphaniline black, the alizarin group (1868), which includes artificial madder, alizarin blue (1877), and the anilines. The earliest of the anilines was a mauve color discovered in 1856, 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 1868. He appears to be using a synthetic blue ink by 1872. 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:


Ink Type
Business Personal
Nutgall 83% 30%
Logwood 10% 45%
Nigrosine 7% 25%
Total 100% 100%

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Bumpetty bump!

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

Here’s a good Casebook dissertation collating all the analysis on the ink.

https://www.casebook.org/dissertations/maybrick_diary/maybrick-diary-analysis.ink.html

Leeds proves that Chloroacetamide traces can come from contamination.

The Nigrosine results don’t matter whether it shows up in the Diary ink or not, since old ink and Diamine both have it. I can see why you’d want a negative but you don’t need it.

Obviously, it apparently has a small percentage of Nigrosine which is probably why Robert A pegs it as business ink.

So we have a Diary of a businessman written in a Victorian office stub book with business ink. I think we’re narrowing in on the Old “Fogey”—I mean “Forger”!

[R. J. Palmer]

Leeds proves that Chloroacetamide traces can come from contamination.

I've heard some thirsty bughouse 'spin' before, but that deserves a Grammy!

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[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I know science has to be repeatable but nobody repeats every experiment over and over.

One paternity test is enough. A positive is a positive. One negative for Chloroacetamine, after a false positive due to suspected contamination, is a negative for Chloroacetamine.

I know you want to go for best 2 out of 3 but then you can just go best of 5 and 7. Is that how it works?

I thought it was conclusive for Diamine? Why the need to retest then? Obviously it’s not proven? I’d go with Leeds over Analysis for Industry when they know what they’re testing. AFI can comment on one-offs though.

[Jay Hartley]

To be clear, the chief chemist of Diamine Ink was Alec Voeller. In 1995 he examined the document at Robert Smith's office and concluded that, in his opinion, the 'Diary' ink was not Diamine ink. He also stated that, in his opinion, the ink did not go on the paper within recent years; and that the document was at least 90 years old (in 1995) and could be older. He added that if he had thought it was modern ink, he would have said so.

So should we ignore the expert opinion of Alec Voeller in favour of the experts we like?

[Tom Mitchell]

So should we ignore the expert opinion of Alec Voeller in favour of the experts we like?

Or, Jay, how about the experts we don't even have?

(I'm thinking Harris with his dirty cloth and his aged brass compass trumping the views of Turgoose and Wild.)

How much faith should we place in the 'experts'? If Turgoose and Wild can be so utterly forgetful that they could fail to note that a dirty cloth and an aged compass could have produced the results they saw in the back of James Maybrick's watch, why would we trust anything about this convoluted case? Iremomger? Leeds? AFI? McNeil? Roger Palmer! Michael Barrett?

[R. J. Palmer]

To be clear, the chief chemist of Diamine Ink was Alec Voeller. In 1995 he examined the document at Robert Smith's office and concluded that, in his opinion, the 'Diary' ink was not Diamine ink. He also stated that, in his opinion, the ink did not go on the paper within recent years; and that the document was at least 90 years old (in 1995) and could be older. He added that if he had thought it was modern ink, he would have said so.

So should we ignore the expert opinion of Alec Voeller in favour of the experts we like?

You guys are unbelievable. Is it any wonder that no one paying even the slightest amount of attention trusts anything you write about the Diary?

Jay Hartley has been bad-mouthing the opinions of documentary examiners all week, claiming that their evaluations are based on visual examinations and observations and not on "hard science."

Setting aside how convenient that outlook is for the sustainability of own barmy theories, in almost the same breath he now directs us to the opinion of Alec Voller---who based his opinion strictly on a visual examination of the diary's writing--the same thing Hartley has been badmouthing and dismissing when convenient! Voller conducted no chemical tests whatsoever. He literally just looked at the diary in an office.

Returning to reality, Voller praised the chemical analysis conducted by AFI...the "hard science"...which detected the presence of chloroacetamide.

Meanwhile, the University of Leeds report does not show a Victorian ink accidently contaminated with chloroacetamide. That is a bizarre misreading of what was stated. It was suggested that the lab assistant had contaminated the scientific equipment while preparing for the test, thus supposedly giving a false positive.

All of this was explained by Phil as recently as yesterday. Voller himself warned Shirley Harrison (in advance!) that the procedure at the University of Leeds might not be sensitive enough to detect chloroacetamide, and, as also pointed out by Phil, they failed to detect sodium---which Dr. Eastaugh had previously detected no less than six times. Thus, it was their results that were inconclusive--not those by AFI.

Y'all consistently misstate what the science actually tells us---then gripe that it can't be trusted!

Obviously, Phil is right. Those doubting the results should have the diary subjected to the far more sophisticated analysis that is now available. I doubt Smith will ever do so.

But, whatever. Keep believing.

[Jay Hartley]

My point exactly Roger. Why can’t Alec Veoller’s account, which he gave to numerous people at the time, be regarded as expert testimony like the document examiner? After all he handled the diary and was the chief chemist of the ink Mike supposedly used.

The document examiner has never even handled the document. Is that not a fact? At least Voeller did.

The document examiner mentioned Diamine because Mike did in his affidavit. My core focus was on this point. The document examiner, who hasn’t actually examined the document is entitled to his opinion. But it is not more credible than anyone else’s without proper science.

Any comment on the central point here of Diamine or just more mud larking?

Typical of you to try and claim I have bad mouthed anyone when in the same post you are implying Robert Smith is somehow knowingly being deceptive.

Lark away.

[R. J. Palmer]

I never implied Smith was 'knowingly being deceptive.' I am just pointing out that he said he would test the diary again, but evidently didn't. There's nothing necessarily 'deceptive' about not doing so, but it might be a little wish washy. Obviously, some expense would be involved in more testing, and from his perspective he has no motive for accruing more costs. Unless he's deeply curious and is willing to potentially undermine his own beliefs, there is no upside for him. But I personally doubt he'll ever be able to sell the diary, if that's what he intends to do. Maybe he has no plans to sell it. I have no idea.

[Markus Aurelius Franzoi]

I can see why Caz doesn't bother. This is 2005 rehash. But here's a trip down memory lane....

Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards: Ink

[Caroline Brown]

Hi Markus,

I was temporarily distracted from the Great Barrett Hoax Conspiracy by equally hard of thinking JFK conspiracy theorists elsewhere.

Voller was not just another 'expert' giving his professional opinion. He was uniquely qualified to recognise his own ink in the diary, albeit with Bongo's added sugar, if it was indeed written with Diamine, and equally qualified to know if it wasn't.

As RJ clearly doesn't recognise Voller's expertise on the subject, and thinks he knows better, I'm wondering why he would welcome further examinations on the diary, visual or otherwise, by suitably qualified experts.

I suppose it's progress that RJ appears to accept that Robert Smith's 'beliefs' are genuine, and could therefore be undermined - or completely knocked for six - by the next person to let their expertise loose on the infernal document.

I'm not sure of the relevance of RJ's observation that: 'Voller himself warned Shirley Harrison (in advance!) that the procedure at the University of Leeds might not be sensitive enough to detect chloroacetamide'. Voller didn't see the diary and deliver his professional verdict until October 1995, and in any case we know that he was overly pessimistic about the procedure used by Leeds, because it was indeed sensitive enough to detect chloroacetamide, and at such a low level that it was suspected to have come from accidental contamination of the equipment, rather than being a substantial ingredient of the ink itself, and this was supported by a repeat performance giving a negative result, following anti-contamination measures. I'm no chemist or physicist, but I'd love to know how the same equipment that is sensitive enough to pick up the presence of a specific substance on initial testing, can then fail to detect the slightest trace second time round, if it is a significant ingredient of the ink being tested, as it would have been in the case of Diamine.

The only reason for chloroacetamide to enter the picture in the first place was because Harold Brough had his deerstalker on in late June 1994, to see if there was any truth in Mike Barrett's drink-fuelled claims to have faked the diary himself. Barrett didn't come up with Diamine; he merely pointed out the Bluecoat Chambers as Brough was driving him round the one-way system, in a bid to help him recall where he might have obtained the raw materials. It was Brough who made enquiries in the art shop and was told that Diamine would have been the only ink they sold that might fit the bill. But there was never any evidence that Mike had been there previously, asking similar questions, or that he had left clutching a bottle or two of Voller's special brew. No evidence that Mike would ever have heard of Diamine if the name hadn't been planted in his brain by others. His affidavit could have been cobbled together from bits and pieces of information he had soaked up like a sponge since April 1992. When left to rely entirely on his own ingenuity, the cracks are only too apparent. He couldn't recall when Tony Devereux had died and made some pretty outlandish claims about the physical scrapbook and what he did to prepare it for battle. His affidavit - completely at odds with the one he made in April 1993 - would have been recognised as the sad and pathetic product of a fractured mind if it was not held up as a shining beacon of truth in certain quarters, by people who really should have known better.

Love,

Caz
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[R. J. Palmer]

As RJ clearly doesn't recognise Voller's expertise on the subject, and thinks he knows better, I'm wondering why he would welcome further examinations on the diary, visual or otherwise, by suitably qualified experts

What a ridiculous comment.

[Tom Mitchell]

Hi Markus,

As RJ clearly doesn't recognise Voller's expertise on the subject, and thinks he knows better, I'm wondering why he would welcome further examinations on the diary, visual or otherwise, by suitably qualified experts.

Love,

Caz
X

As testimony goes, the chief research chemist for Diamine seems to me to be a remarkably solid commentator after whose views I too question what the purpose of further examination of the ink would be (if it were merely to determine whether it was Barrett-Diamine or not). Tests have been done, of course, and ambiguity abounds - even to the issue of the relevance of chloroacetamide if it actually were in the scrapbook ink as it is claimed that:

"In September 1995, Harrison [* ] wrote to Dow Chemicals in the United States for their views. Dr Earl Morris made the critical observation that chloroacetamide had been found in preparations well before the time of the Whitechapel murders."

I thought your post was excellent, Caroline - in particular, your observations about Barrett being driven around the one-way system long enough for him to think of a shop he could possibly have got the ink from (and your further intriguing suggestion that it was Brough's enquiries in the shop Barrett chose that led to the decision to run with Diamine in Barrett's somewhat sozzelled plot). It is these little human moments which bring us back to earth with a wee bump and ask us to rationalise some of our more trenchant - if outlandish - beliefs and theories. Well, ask some of us to, anyway.

Not ridiculous in the slightest, none of it.

Cheers,

Tom


* Jack the Ripper: The American Connection (hardback), Shirley Harrison, 2003, Blake Publishing Limited, p340

[Caroline Brown]

Cheers, Tom.

I don't understand what RJ expects us to think, in response to his suggestion about more tests, when he has made it crystal clear that to his mind Voller was talking out of his bottom about the ink he himself formulated, and that Mike 'Aldridge Prior' Barrett became the world's greatest forger for all of fifteen minutes, when he fooled an ink chemist with his own ink, by stirring in a sugar lump and fooling his wife or A.N.Other [we are never quite sure who is being accused here] into using it to pen the DAiRy.

Anyone who could live in this alternative universe, just to cling on to a desired conclusion, is not fooling anyone, so no test on earth will make a blind bit of difference to his idée fixe if it still fails to tie the Barretts up in a neat bow labelled The Maybrick Hoaxers.

Love,

Caz
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