It's for a Dip Pen

I was rummaging in my Secretary Desk top drawer the other day rearranging things and found two of these.  I  knew they were pen nibs, I just thought they were sort of odd looking ones.

It turns out that they're for a dip pen, not a fountain pen. That is, that old fashioned sort of pen that you dipped in ink in order to write with them.

The desk itself is over 100 years old.  I don't know how old it is, but it's old.  These nibs no doubt came with it, as nobody in my family every wrote with pens of that type since the desk arrived.  It had been belonged to my Great Great Aunt Philomene, but I have to imagine that at the time of her death she wasn't writing with them either.  Surely everyone had gone to fountain pens at some point.

Apparently these pens remained common for school children into the 1950s, which surprised me.  I  know that when I was in grade school in the 60s and 70s, some desks still had ink wells to hold bottels of ink, but I just assumed that they were for fountain pens.  It turns out, I was wrong, which I didn't know until looking into this.  They were for ink bottles for dip pens.  Fountain pens were expensive and dip pens were not, comparatively.  After ball point pens started to come in some schools held back adopting them as they increased the speed, and hence the sloppiness, of writing.  Oddly enough, decreasing the speed of my writing is why I went to fountain pens.

Apparent dip pens are still made, although why isn't clear to me.  As I have the nibs, maybe I should look for the pen.