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Saturday 14 January 2017

invisible ink in the sixties: we didn't see that coming

Did you use invisible ink when you were a Sixties or Seventies nipper?

I know I did. I used to love writing secret messages and revealing them somehow.

Not sure at all anymore how I revealed my messages though! Did you have to wait till it dried?

I seem to remember a particular toy that included invisible ink. There wasn't any in my favourite spy case Secret Sam though I don't think.

Could it have been those Witch shaped thick felt pens? They had plastic witches pointed hats on them.

Did you use invisible ink? Could it be manufactured at home?
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9 comments:

  1. Arto1/14/2017 6:50 am

    Inspired by Sherlock of Baker Street, I recall doing some experiments with freshly squeezed lemon juice and a quill. The message became visible by ironing the parchment with hot iron. And it worked, the writing emerging on a blank sheet, beautifully brownish.

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    1. WOODSY1/15/2017 6:48 pm

      Fantastic Arto! That does jog a vague memory but it fades fast! Lemon Juice and Iron, the standard issue for the young secret agent! Do you think there was a toy version?

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  2. Anonymous1/14/2017 10:09 am

    I've experimented with lemon juice as well, and I have a faint memory of having an invisible ink marker of some kind. Probably a Bazooka gum gadget.

    On a similar theme, we had an outbreak of secret alphabets at school when I was 13 or so. The two brightest boys in class had developed a secret sign language (which they used to great effect during exams in class) with a written variant to boot. So I created a secret alphabet for my friends & self (based on an existing one I found in an encyclopedia) which I actually still use to this day for private notes. :)

    Best -- Paul

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    1. WOODSY1/15/2017 6:57 pm

      I love the secret language thing Paul. I used to be amazed by my Dad's frequent use of shorthand, which he took all his work notes in. A dying art so a sort of secret language. There are two famous vintage ones here in Blighty, Pitmatic and Polari. Not sure if a toy company exploited the idea of secret signs and language, although there were decoders in some attache cases. I have a Man from Uncle decoder chart from 1966.

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  3. electricwave1/14/2017 4:25 pm

    me too the lemon juice!!! ew

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    1. WOODSY1/15/2017 6:58 pm

      It was a worldwide thing EW! What did you write?

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  4. lewis p morley1/15/2017 4:00 am

    Boy! I was wracking my brains there for a while, I remembered seeing a pen set as a kid and I knew it was a fairly high end brand. Googled without luck until I remembered the brand: Platignum! I didn't remember it was a "Man from Uncle" set!

    http://murdersville.co.uk/museum/man-from-u-n-c-l-e-invisible-writing-pen/

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    1. WOODSY1/15/2017 7:04 pm

      Wow, Platignum Lewis, yes, well worled out! an English brand although I didn't have an UNCLE pen. I did have normal Platignum pens as a kid I'm sure. Cool link. Thanks. I have been collecting the US version of the Marx 1966 UNCLE Counterspy Set for years and found out that a UK version included an UNCLE Big Pen. Ant info about this pen has eluded me thus far. Kn fact I have been unable to find anything else about the UK set other than the list of contents I have typed by a dealer years ago. Mission Impossible!

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  5. Paul Adams from New Zealand3/08/2020 1:14 am

    I used milk, easier to get a small amount without cutting up a whole lemon. Same procedure. Apply to paper, allow to dry, and reveal by holding over the stove or other heat source. The problem was that the milk was very thin, and tended to buckle thin paper - perhaps I just used too much.

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