Cabinet of curiosities: 15K ink samples at Secret Service
By: Colleen Long, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — In a cabinet inside a modest laboratory in downtown Washington are rows and rows of ink samples in plastic squeeze bottles and small glass jars. To the untrained eye, it’s just a bunch of blackish liquid with strange names like “moldy sponge” or “green grass.”
But to the U.S. Secret Service agents who use the samples, they are the clues that could save the president from an assassination attempt. Or stop a counterfeit ring. Or identify the D.C. sniper.
The ink library at the lab contains more than 15,000 samples of pen, marker and printer inks dating back more than 85 years. The collection is the result of one man, Antonio Cantu, a renowned investigator and former chief chemist at the Secret Service who started picking up samples in the 1960s. Cantu died unexpectedly last year, and the Secret Service recently dedicated the lab in his honor.
