Though the fountain pen was popular in the 1940s the straight pen lived on in schools and homes until about 1955. With this set is a bottle of "india ink" on the left, a permanent non-washable black ink and a common bottle for Waterman's ink which came in a variety of colours but most classrom teachers preferred a dark blue. Girls often added perfume and my friend Bill used potato water in his ink because it had an unpleasant but lasting smell. A few trendy girls like to use a sort of torquoise aqua coloured ink but most guys considered it "sissy." Messy ink spotted hands did not go away with the ball point pen, the early versions leaked enough to be as messy as the fountain or straight pen.