Chinese stamp

[Larry L.]

Ben,

So it was pointed out to me by Chris Weeks that if you rub the red stamp on the limited editions, it will smudge. So it occurs to me that I'll have to warn every damn monkey I let handle my precious, Don't touch that! Which is fine, as long as it gives me a lead in to tell some cool anecdote.

So, uh, you got any cool trivia to accompany that thing? It must be some special fancy ink or something, right?

[Ben Lehman]

If you do rub it, you probably want to wash your hands afterwards.  The main ingredient is mercury sulfide.

While I was making the books, I had a critical ink failure, which resulted in the drier (smudgy) prints on some of them.  I'm really sorry for it, but there was little I could do.

The stamp reads, from right to left top to bottom: Lei Bing Xian (random character)

Lei is the sinicization of my family name.  Means "thunder."
Bingxian is the sinicization of my given name.  Mean "report / inherit" and "first," respectively.
The last character is just put on stamps to fill up space when you have three characters in a square.

Some people's stamps may be mis-stamped, either blurry beyond recognition or sideways.  This is because my wrist got really tired as I was stamping.  If this is the case for you -- I'm really sorry.  Let me know if there's something that would rectify it for you.

yrs--
--Ben

[John Harper]

Just so it's not all bad news: My stamp turned out great. Thanks for the personal touch.

Also, in case I haven't said it somewhere else already: The game is beautiful. Form and function.

[Paul Czege]

If you do rub it, you probably want to wash your hands afterwards.  The main ingredient is mercury sulfide.

Mine looks nice too, but I'd hate to smear it. Is anyone aware of a good spray on fixative that'll work on mercury sulfide ink, but won't discolor or plasticize the paper?

Paul

[Larry L.]

Ben,

What I was really looking for is: So is this standard ink pad ink you get at Office Depot? Or is it special ink handmade by Buddhist monks according to an ancient Chinese formula? How do you know that bit about the mercury sulphide?

[Ben Lehman]

Ben,

What I was really looking for is: So is this standard ink pad ink you get at Office Depot? Or is it special ink handmade by Buddhist monks according to an ancient Chinese formula? How do you know that bit about the mercury sulphide?

It's third grade seal mud from China (there are five grades, so it is safely middling.)  I know the bit about mercury sulfide... gosh... I don't know where.  Probably some textbook somewhere.

It isn't, technically, an ink at all.

Paul: Let me know if you find out about the fixative.  I've found that it tends to stay after about a week or so, but that's just in my books, and some of these stamps may be a bit drier (due to afformentioned ink failure.)

yrs--
--Ben