The modern ballpoint pen was invented by the Argentine Laszlo Biro. This invention, so useful to many, unfortunately didn’t benefit its creator. He didn’t patent it in time and ended up with nothing. But thanks to this groundbreaking invention, people finally stopped smudging ink.
As sad as it is, many today don’t even know his name because in most languages, a pen is simply called a “ballpoint pen,” and it’s not associated with its creator. AdmiGram.com decided to rectify this unfortunate situation and has prepared a wealth of interesting facts and stories from the life of the ballpoint pen.
The ballpoint pen and its history
How and why the idea of creating a ballpoint pen emerged
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Today, the ballpoint pen is a common item that can be found in every home or office. But once upon a time, it was intended only for a select few, like British Royal Air Force officers. Using fountain pens during flight was inconvenient; ink would constantly leak, and there was a higher chance of making a blot.
The idea to create a ballpoint pen was conceived by Hungarian journalist Laszlo Jozsef Biro in the mid-1930s. Due to his work, he often visited a printing press. One day, while observing how the rotary printing press produced nearly dry newspaper sheets, he thought it would be great if fountain pen ink dried as quickly as the printing press ink.
What hindered the invention of the modern ballpoint pen earlier
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Laszlo conducted research and realized that developing such a convenient fountain pen was currently impossible. To make ink dry quickly, it needed to be thick, but thick ink would quickly clog the capillary system of a fountain pen. However, Laszlo didn’t give up there. He thought, “If we can’t use thick ink in a regular pen, we should come up with a different writing instrument.”
He shared his idea with his brother George, a chemist, and together they developed a pen of a new design. The brothers came up with the concept that replacing the sharp tip of the pen with a ball-bearing, which had a freely rotating ball at the end, filled with ink, could work. In the summer of 1938, the prototype of the ballpoint pen created by the brothers turned out to be suitable for use.
When the first modern ballpoint pen was introduced
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However, war was looming, and Laszlo, a liberal journalist in pro-Nazi Hungary, didn’t want to stay there. He emigrated to Paris, then lived in Spain, and eventually settled in Argentina. In 1940, George, his Hungarian brother, also moved to Argentina. In the same year, the Hungarian brothers, along with their Argentine friend Juan Meyne, who became the project’s investor, began preparing for the production of the ballpoint pen.
The first pens appeared on the market in 1942 under the name Birome, derived from the combination of the surnames Biro and Meyne. Interestingly, in Argentina, ballpoint pens of various brands are still referred to as “biromes.”
The most interesting facts about ballpoint pens
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- Pens can’t write in open space and in zero gravity conditions.
- The first batch of ballpoint pens went on sale in New York in 1945. The queue for them was so long that authorities had to deploy hundreds of policemen to maintain order. In one day, 10,000 pens were sold, even though they cost $12 each, which was what an American industrial worker earned for 8 hours of work at the time.
- Initially, ballpoint pen refills were bent into a coil to increase ink capacity, giving them “double length.” However, to reduce production costs, thinner and smoother refills were eventually produced.
- In most European languages, ballpoint pens are named using the word “ball” – “ballpoint” pen in English, “bolígrafo” in Spanish, “penna a sfera” in Italian, and “Kugelschreiber” in German. Only in Argentina are they called “biromes” in honor of the pen’s inventor, Laszlo Biro, who didn’t earn a cent from his invention because he didn’t patent it in time, and experienced businessmen took advantage of him.
- Every second, 125 ballpoint pens are sold worldwide. One-third of the ballpoint pen market in the United States belongs to the BIC company, which has sold over 7 billion pens in the USA since 1983.
- A person writes with 3-4 pens in a year, and each good pen can write 50,000 words.
- In the United States, there is a ballpoint pen that speaks English, which is sold with special paper. It automatically corrects all spelling errors, can translate to and from Spanish, and can pronounce words aloud.
- The most expensive pen listed in the Guinness Book of World Records costs 1 million euros. It’s a platinum fountain pen called “Montegrappa.”
- Approximately 100 people die each year from choking on ballpoint pens.
- The vast majority of buyers, when testing a pen’s quality, write their own name on paper.
- Ballpoint pens first became available for sale in 1945 in New York. A massive queue formed, which today can only be compared to the lines for new Apple iPads. To maintain order and prevent a stampede at the sales location, hundreds of police officers were deployed. The first batch of pens sold out quickly, with 10,000 units purchased, despite the relatively high price of $12, especially for that time.
- Ballpoint pens are used by 92% of the world’s population, and only 8% can do without them.
- Ballpoint pens are available in various forms today. In the United States alone, over 350 patents have been issued for different inventions related to ballpoint pens. There’s even a device with a built-in mini-computer that can talk, translate written text, and correct mistakes.
- Biting a pen is considered bad manners, although it’s an indicator of the intensity of thought. People who often bite their pens are usually creative individuals.
- Many people are now passionate about collecting ballpoint pens, a hobby known as “stilophilia.” The world’s largest collection belongs to a German woman named Angelika Unverhau, who owns over 160,000 pens, a record recognized by the Guinness World Records.
image on top: Kelly Sikkema / Unsplash
