NCJ Number
195253
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 47 Issue: 2 Dated: March 2002 Pages: 324-327
Date Published
March 2002
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This paper describes a method for comparing the relative age of ballpoint-pen ink entries written by the same ballpoint pen on documents stored in darkness.
Abstract
As part of the ink-dating project that has been conducted in the author's laboratory for some time, ink entries in the form of asterisks have been produced repeatedly (once a month for about 2 years) on different types of paper and stored in various places and conditions. One of the documents involved in this project was an ordinary notebook that contained lined paper. Blue-colored ballpoint-pen inks from several different ink manufacturers were used for writing asterisks in this notebook. Each asterisk corresponded to about 1 cm. ink in length. The notebook was kept at room temperature and kept closed. Inks were extracted from the document and analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography. On aging, changes in the chemical composition of the inks were noted. These changes were similar to those observed when inks were exposed to light or heat. The aging was followed by using ternary diagrams constructed for dyes generally present in blue-colored inks: Crystal Violet, Methyl Violet, and Tetramethyl Para Rosaniline. The procedure is applicable for relative dating of ink entries in diaries, notebooks, etc., where often several ink entries are written by the same ink; however, a prolonged exposure of the document to daylight and/or artificial light (light from fluorescent tubes) as well as to extensive heat will render the whole procedure inapplicable. An example of the use of the proposed method in casework is provided. 5 figures and 2 references