The obligatory post on Facebook was asking if you knew what these were to prove you were a child of the 90’s. Why? I knew what these were before the 90’s!

Most people answered these were from fountain pens, but I disagreed, these were from cartridge pens.

A real fountain pen was one with a bulb in it that you squeezed to suck the ink up, or a lever on the side that squashed the inner bulb flat and when it was released pulled the ink in. I always used quink ink.

The cartridges were from cartridge pens, you just unscrewed the back half of the pen and swapped them out when they were empty… The only risk was if the cartridge leaked, the top end of the pen had a bit of metal that pierced the cartridge to allow the ink into the pen and nib. Sometimes you would end up with a pocket or pencil case full of ink if they leaked.