Dip pens, or dipping pens as they are sometimes called, preceded the fountain pens that were developed by Lewis Waterman and others in the second half of the 19th century. As their name suggests, dip pens had to be regularly dipped into an inkwell or ink bottle because they lacked on-board reservoirs of pigment. Some of the earliest dip pens were made of reeds and quills, but these organic materials began to be replaced by steel in 1822, when...Continue Reading