History of the development of the ballpoint pen
The term ballpoint pen first appeared in 1888, when an American journalist named John Lauder designed a pen that used a ball ball as a nib, but he failed to make it a convenient commodity for people to use.
In 1895, commercial non-writing ballpoint pens were also sold on the British market, but they failed to become popular because of their narrow use. In 1916, someone in Germany also designed and produced a new type of ballpoint pen, whose structure is closer to today's ballpoint pen, but its performance is poor and has not attracted widespread attention.
Hungarian journalist Ladislo Biro is well aware of the problems with ordinary fountain pens. Biró believes he came up with the idea to replace the traditional ink pen with a pen that uses quick-drying ink while visiting a newspaper. The ink used for newspapers dries almost instantaneously and leaves no smudges. Biro vowed to apply similar ink to a new type of writing instrument. To avoid sticky ink clogging his pen, he offered to install small metal balls that could rotate at the tip of the tube containing this quick-drying ink. This metal ball will have two functions: as a pen cap to prevent the ink from drying out. Causes ink to flow out of the pen at a controlled rate. In June 1943, Bíro and his brother Georg, a chemist, applied for a new patent with the European Patent Office and produced the first commercially available ballpoint pen, the Biro ballpoint pen. Later, the British government purchased the rights to use the patented ballpoint pens, making them available to RAF crews. In addition to being stronger than traditional fountain pens, ballpoint pens can also be used at low pressures in high air (where the ink of a traditional fountain pen can spill). This was used well in the RAF, making the Biro ballpoint pen a hit with acclaim, which was widely used in the army in World War II due to its robustness and ability to adapt to battlefield environments.
In the United States, Milton Renault introduced a new ballpoint pen in 1945 and successfully put it into commercial production for the first time to replace the then popular fountain pen. This ballpoint pen uses a small bead to release a highly concentrated gelatin-type ink onto the paper. The Renault ballpoint pen is a simple writing instrument and is marketed as "the first pen capable of writing underwater". Renault sold 10,000 ballpoint pens when it first launched the new ballpoint pen. These first-time ballpoint pens are very expensive ($10 each), mainly because of their new technology.
In 1945, the first cheap ballpoint pen was produced. At that time, the Frenchman Marcel Bich developed an industrial process for making ballpoint pens, which led to a significant reduction in unit costs. In 1949, Bich introduced his ballpoint pen in Europe. He named these ballpoint pens "BIC," a simplified version of his name that was easy to remember. Ten years later, BIC sold its ballpoint pens for the first time to the U.S. market. Consumers were initially reluctant to buy BIC ballpoint pens because other manufacturers had already introduced many ballpoint pens in the U.S. market. To dispel consumer hesitation, BIC launched an exciting national television campaign to promote the ballpoint pen to consumers "use it once, use it every time!" And sold this ballpoint pen for only 29 cents. The BIC also released television commercials depicting their pens shooting out of rifles, strapped to skates and even mounted on a jackhammer. Within a year, competition forced the price of each pen to drop below 10 cents. BIC produces millions of ballpoint pens every day!
A ballpoint pen is a writing instrument that uses the rotation of a steel ball to write ink on paper. After World War II, ballpoint pens were introduced to China. Savvy businessmen advertised "atom pens" to create sales by exploiting the aftermath of the atomic bomb that exploded in Japan. In fact, the "ballpoint pen" has nothing to do with atoms, but is pronounced similarly. Ballpoint pens soon became popular in the world. Japan alone consumes 400 million ballpoint pens a year. The ballpoint pen can write because the steel ball in the nib can bring the quick-drying ink out and transcribe it onto the paper when it rolls. It is said that Japanese ballpoint refills contain enough dry ink to write 20,000 characters. However, after the number of words written, the gap between the steel ball and the steel round pipe will gradually become larger, so that the ink will leak out of the gap, often staining the clothes, etc., which is very unpleasant.
A small business owner in Japan came up with a trick: install less dry ink, so that the ink in the refill can only write more than 10,000 words and run out, so that the problem of oil leakage in the ballpoint refill is solved. Therefore, he applied for a patent to produce a short ballpoint refill and ballpoint pen, which was well received by customers. This method of solving problems seems to be a kind of cutting corners, but in essence it is an innovation, an innovation in ideas and methods to solve problems that people could not solve at that time.
Ballpoint pens were more expensive than fountain pens in the 50s of the 20th century, and they were reluctant to throw them away after use, and they could continue to be used after refueling in specialized pen shops. It is said that the Hungarian Bilo, a proofreader in a printing factory, because of the printed clear sample, more moisture, with a pen to change, the words are easy to seep and blurred, so he uses steel balls to cover the ink tube for writing, it is not easy to produce previous problems. Later, Bilo provided his invention to the RAF, and the first ballpoint pens were produced by a British aircraft factory. Until World War II, the Americans adopted Bilo's invention. In 1916, the German Lisper designed a new ballpoint pen, but it was not promoted. Until the outbreak of World War II, the US military industry proposed to produce a pen suitable for high-altitude writing, not leaky, not affected by cold and heat, able to store a large amount of ink, and did not have to be poured frequently, and gave a heavy reward. In 1944, Chicago businessman Reynolds saw this as an excellent opportunity to make a fortune, and because of his lively mind, he invited people to improve Lisper's pen, and it was successful in about a year. Just when the United States dropped the atomic bomb in Japan, he advertised his pen alongside the atomic bomb and named it the Atomic Pen, which quickly swept the world.
