The Power of the Ballpoint Pen

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It’s everywhere, it’s all around us, and everyone is using it. No, I’m not talking about a pair of socks. I’m talking about the ballpoint pen. A really wonderful tool for writing, which has been with us for decades, and will continue to provide us an affordable way, of getting our thoughts written on paper.

Used everywhere in the world today, the ballpoint pen has all but completely replaced fountain pens and other ink writing utensils.  Like all pens, ballpoint pens contain an internal reservoir of ink, which they then dispense onto any surface in which the tip of the pen comes in contact with.  Ballpoint pens rely on a suction action created by a spinning ball bearing at their tip, to draw out ink that would otherwise not flow through a pen.  They can therefore use inks that dry almost instantly on contact, which tend to be much more viscous and would never work in a fountain pen.

The original concept of the ballpoint pen orginates with man named John J Loud, who took a patent out on his idea in 1888.  However, Loud never marketed his concept, and the innovation of his invention was never realized.  The patent eventually expired, and the fountain pen continued its unchecked reign of the pen market. 

The ballpoint wouldn’t make another appearance until 1938, when a Hungarian journalist named Laszlo Biro would stumble across the idea.  Unlike Loud, Biro’s reinvention of the ballpoint would have a lasting impact on the world, and eventually lead to the dominance of ballpoints that we see today.  Indeed, in many parts around the world, ballpoints are still often called biros, in recognition of their inventor and initial manufacturer.

In the early 1940’s, Laszlo and his brother fled their then turbulent home country of Hungary for Argentina, where they eventually met a British official named Henry Martin.  Martin was particularly interested in the fact that Laszlo ballpoint could write under any conditions, in high altitudes or even upside down, which are both abilities fountain pens lack.  He took the idea to the Royal Air Force, and it was the British Government that first purchase the patent on Biro’s invention.  The British manufactured the pen under the brand name Biro, after the Hungarian inventor, and provided it to its air force pilots for use while flying. 

The rights to make and sell ballpoint pens was purchased in 1945 by the Eversharp Company, a company that was already in the writing utensil business with a series of mechanical pencils.  Unfortunately for Eversharp, a Chicago businessman named Milton Reynolds had come across some Biros while in Buenos Aires, and promptly taken them back to America to found the Reynolds International Pen Company, which hit the market with its ballpoint pens first.  In spite of Eversharps rights, it was Reynolds’ ballpoint pen ‘the rocket’ that achieved large scale success in the United States.

Today, ballpoint pens are manufactured and sold by numerous companies around the world, including BIC, its largest producer today.  Although BIC dominates the market for the cheap throw away version, there are many different brands of higher quality ballpoint pens.

Ballpoint pens are essentially very useful and important today. Almost everyone uses them, from teachers to students, from employers to employees, even government officials and the military. The ballpoint pens have infiltrated every major human population, and will provide quite an important piece of aid, to getting our ideas communicated, through the written form. Ballpoint pens are really great.