[pimpom]

Did you guys know this? Long ago, pens with filling mechanisms were not easily available, especially to common folks in poorer countries like India. Ink was stored directly in the bottom part of the pen.

One advantage of that was that it could hold a large amount of ink, but it was messy. Ink had to be poured in from the bottle or transferred from bottle to pen with an eyedropper. This is how the eyedropper icon came to be used for colour pick tool in computer painting programs. The thread fitting the nib section to the ink container was often not completely airtight, leaking ink while writing and badly smudged fingers.