Fountain pens were once almost as ubiquitous as ballpoint pens are today and, naturally, an entire industry of complimentary accessories catering to the fountain pen lifestyle grew alongside them. Some frequently encountered items include inkwells and blotters. Blotters are an interesting lot, designed to absorb excess ink and thereby prevent smudging. This can be a necessity when writing with liquid ink, depending on the paper upon which you are writing, especially if you do not have the time to let the ink dry naturally. Rudimentary blotting agents going back to the early days of writing included sand, clay, and even salt. Pounce, a fine resinous powder made from various materials such as ground bones, was frequently utilized to prevent the unintended spread of ink. Blotting paper was an accidental discovery of the early 1800s. The prevailing lore is that a worker in an English paper mill failed to add sizing to a batch of paper. Sizing is a substance used to reduce paper’s tendency to absorb liquid when dry. Consequently, the unsized paper produced in that batch was discarded. When someone tried to write on a piece of the discarded scrap paper, they found that it rapidly absorbed ink, making it unusable for writing, hence the birth of blotting paper. As fountain pen technology improved, blotting paper would become an essential companion, a fact that Pelikan was well aware of and exploited in an interesting way. Keep reading to learn how Pelikan turned an artist’s whimsy into an advertising gold mine.