When did ballpoint pens come about? What sort of pens did people use in 1962, for instance?

Question

Disposable pens? When?

Answer 1

The ballpoint pen was invented by Laszlo Biro in 1938.

The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issued on 30 October 1888, to John J Loud. The pen had a rotating small steel ball, held in place by a socket. Although the pen, which proved to be too coarse for letter writing, could be used to mark rough surfaces, especially leather, it was not commercially exploited.

In the period between 1900 and 1940, there was intense interest in improving writing instruments, particularly alternatives or improvements to the fountain pen. Slavoljub Eduard Penkala invented a solid-ink fountain pen in 1907, a German inventor named Baum took out a ballpoint patent in 1910, and yet another ballpoint pen device was patented by Van Vechten Riesburg in 1916. In these inventions, the ink was placed in a thin tube whose end was blocked by a tiny ball, held so that it could not slip into the tube or fall out of the pen. The ink clung to the ball, which spun as the pen was drawn across the paper. These proto-ballpoints did not deliver the ink evenly. If the ball socket was too tight, the ink did not reach the paper. If it was too loose, ink flowed past the tip, leaking or making smears. Many inventors tried to fix these problems, but without commercial success.

László Bíró, a newspaper editor, was frustrated by the amount of time that he wasted in filling up fountain pens and cleaning up smudged pages, and the sharp tip of his fountain pen often tore his pages of newsprint. Bíró had noticed that the type of ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge free. He decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. Since, when tried, this viscous ink would not flow into a regular fountain pen nib, Bíró, with the help of his brother George, a chemist, began to work on designing new types of pens. Bíró fitted this pen with a tiny ball in its tip that was free to turn in a socket. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper. Bíró filed a British patent on 15 June, 1938.

Earlier pens leaked or clogged due to improper viscosity of the ink and depended on gravity to deliver the ink to the ball. Depending on gravity caused difficulties with the flow and required that the pen be held nearly vertically. The Biro pen both pressurized the ink column and used capillary action for ink delivery, solving the flow problems.

In 1940 the Bíró brothers and a friend, Juan Jorge Meyne, moved to Argentina fleeing Nazi Germany and on June 10, filed another patent, and formed Bíró Pens of Argentina. The pen was sold in Argentina under the Birome brand (portmanteau of Biro and Meyne), which is how ballpoint pens are still known in that country. Laszlo was known in Argentina as Ladislao José Bíró. This new design was licensed by the British, who produced ball point pens for RAF aircrew, who found they worked much better than fountain pens at high altitude.

Eversharp, a maker of mechanical pencils teamed up with Eberhard-Faber in May 1945 to license the design for sales in the United States. At about the same time a U.S. businessman saw a Biro pen in a store in Buenos Aires. He purchased several samples and returned to the U.S. to found the Reynolds International Pen Company, producing the Biro design without license as the Reynolds Rocket. He managed to beat Eversharp to market in late 1945; the first ballpoint pens went on sale at Gimbels department store in New York City on 29 October 1945 for US$12.50 each (about US$130 of today's money). This pen was widely known as the rocket in the U.S. into the late 1950s.

Similar pens went on sale before the end of the year in England, and by the next year in most of Europe. Cheap disposable instruments were produced by the BIC Corporation with "Bic" as the tradename; as with 'Hoover' and 'Xerox', the tradename has subsequently passed into general use. With BIC's expanding product range, the original Bic pen design is now termed the Bic Cristal.

I hope this was informative,Take care... :)

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Ballpoint pens became popular in the USA in the 1950s. Despite their popularity, smudges were still a problem and some school teachers would not allow students to use them. By 1962 they dominated the market.

Answer 4

1962 - ballpoint pens.

Also, it was pretty cool to have a fountain pen that had a cartridge instead of having to draw up ink into the reservoir from an ink bottle.

We didn't have markers, though.
School movies for science always had big demonstration graphs that they wrote on with grease pencils.

Answer 5

The best cleaner I have ever used and will never be without again is called Power Spray (or it could be called Spray Power-all I know is it works)! It is in the cleaning aisle and is ONLY at Wal-Mart. It has taken all kinds of stains out but has never discolored fabrics or any other item. It has removed Sharpie from glass, countertops, carpet, everything. I definately recommend this product!

Answer 6

were there big fat writing markers in 1962?

Answer 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pens#History