Fountain pen users forced to splash out on ink
SIR – Sean Chapman (Letters, January 8) says the cost of printer ink is a “modern wonder”.
The cost of ordinary ink is equally shocking. I recently decided to buy a fountain pen, as a more ecological alternative to disposable ballpoint pens. I was surprised to find that a 50ml pot of ink costs £7.50. In volume terms this is the equivalent of paying £112 for a bottle of wine.
I can’t believe that ink could have been so expensive in 1968, when at prep school it was standard practice to use blotting paper to soak it up from our inkwells, in order to flick dripping pellets at those sitting in the rows in front.
A G Whitehead
St Leonards-on-sea, East Sussex