1 INTRODUCTION
Writing implements have dramatically changed throughout history. (Figure 2) The first recorded writing implement was a bronze or bone tool that was used to scratch a moist clay tablet around 4000 BC. (Ringpen, 2007) From here, many iterations and improvements were made, allowing us the privilege of the pens we take for granted each and every day. Between 1800 and 1950, the greatest developments were made in pens, with three main pens being invented, and improved. Therefore, these will be investigated further to fully understand the changes they underwent to become the pens we know today. These three pens were the Steel Pen, The Fountain Pen, and the Ballpoint Pen. These are the most familiar pens to people these days, while also …show more content…
The way the ballpoint pen works, is that a ball bearing is placed into a socket that is very closely fitted, thus, when the ball rotates, the ink is fed from the ink cartridge or reservoir, onto the surface it is writing on (Figure 8). It was made with a tightly fitting lid, so that when the lid was on the pen, air could not get in and dry out the ink in the pen, nor could ink leak from the pen. However, this pen was quickly forgotten due to the fact that it was never put into production. Later, in the twentieth century, the ballpoint pen was reinvented by Ladislao and Georg Biro (Figure 9). It was quite similar to Loud’s pen that had been invented half a century earlier in the sense that it also had a ball bearing that sat in a closely fitted socket. These men moved to Argentina, and started small scale production of the pens, until licensing for the pen was worldwide. The British government bought licensing rights for the pen, as the British Airforce needed a new type of pen that didn’t leak at the high altitudes that the planes reached, as fountain pens did. (Global Education Needs, 2016) (Invention Showcase) However, before the pen came to the United States, a business man, who had seen the pens on a business trip to Argentina, developed his own pen based on the Biro model. Milton Reynolds brought his pen to the American market in 1945 copying the design of Biro, completely ignoring their patent. It was marketed as a “miraculous pen that will revolutionise writing.” (Daniels 1980 Pg 318) It became a huge success, selling at $12.50 each and making $100 000 in the first day, this also indirectly profited the Biro’s. However, both of these models of ballpoint pens wrote very poorly. They often skipped and clogged, with a tendency for the ink to smear, fade and transfer, leading to a
Writing implements have dramatically changed throughout history. (Figure 2) The first recorded writing implement was a bronze or bone tool that was used to scratch a moist clay tablet around 4000 BC. (Ringpen, 2007) From here, many iterations and improvements were made, allowing us the privilege of the pens we take for granted each and every day. Between 1800 and 1950, the greatest developments were made in pens, with three main pens being invented, and improved. Therefore, these will be investigated further to fully understand the changes they underwent to become the pens we know today. These three pens were the Steel Pen, The Fountain Pen, and the Ballpoint Pen. These are the most familiar pens to people these days, while also …show more content…
The way the ballpoint pen works, is that a ball bearing is placed into a socket that is very closely fitted, thus, when the ball rotates, the ink is fed from the ink cartridge or reservoir, onto the surface it is writing on (Figure 8). It was made with a tightly fitting lid, so that when the lid was on the pen, air could not get in and dry out the ink in the pen, nor could ink leak from the pen. However, this pen was quickly forgotten due to the fact that it was never put into production. Later, in the twentieth century, the ballpoint pen was reinvented by Ladislao and Georg Biro (Figure 9). It was quite similar to Loud’s pen that had been invented half a century earlier in the sense that it also had a ball bearing that sat in a closely fitted socket. These men moved to Argentina, and started small scale production of the pens, until licensing for the pen was worldwide. The British government bought licensing rights for the pen, as the British Airforce needed a new type of pen that didn’t leak at the high altitudes that the planes reached, as fountain pens did. (Global Education Needs, 2016) (Invention Showcase) However, before the pen came to the United States, a business man, who had seen the pens on a business trip to Argentina, developed his own pen based on the Biro model. Milton Reynolds brought his pen to the American market in 1945 copying the design of Biro, completely ignoring their patent. It was marketed as a “miraculous pen that will revolutionise writing.” (Daniels 1980 Pg 318) It became a huge success, selling at $12.50 each and making $100 000 in the first day, this also indirectly profited the Biro’s. However, both of these models of ballpoint pens wrote very poorly. They often skipped and clogged, with a tendency for the ink to smear, fade and transfer, leading to a