TexasMadness
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Location: Austin, Texas
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Ballpoint pen...did you know?
Ever wonder about that little invention that is so ubiquitous in our lives now? Well, it all started over 100 years ago. Around the turn of the 20th century, there was a flurry to improve writing implements from the old standard fountain pen. Several patents were issued for pens with ink held in a tube with a rolling ball of steel in a socket in contact with the paper. However, none of these pens worked reliably and were not commercialized.
Laszlo Biro, a Hungarian journalist, was frustrated with the limitation of fountain pens - they needed to be refilled, the tips tore fine newsprint, and smudges were abundant. He wanted ink that was similar to newspaper ink - viscous and quick to dry. But it was too viscous for a fountain pen. He and his brother, Georg, a chemist, produced the first ballpoint pen with reliable function.
The Biro brothers fled Nazi Germany in 1940 and set up shop in Argentina where they filed a patent on June 10 for the first working ballpoint pen.
By 1945, the pen had found it's way to New York. It went on sale for $12.45, the equivalent of $145 today!!! The store sold $125,000 on the first day. The pen was called The Rocket until the 50s.
So celebrate Ballpoint Pen Day today, the anniversary of the patent, and thank the inventors for such a simple but extremely useful tool.
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6/10/2009, 4:18 pm
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muladzh
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Re: Ballpoint pen...did you know?
Did you also know, that the art of handwriting was destroyed by the ball point pen - it is too free flowing, and moves to readily on the paper, making handwriting suffer.
---
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6/10/2009, 11:00 pm
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TexasMadness
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Re: Ballpoint pen...did you know?
I'm not so sure about that! I have loads of letters from the 1800s. I'd say that half of them are illegible.
I think what really killed handwriting is that it's not taught in schools and not looked upon as a needed skill. In that case, perhaps the printing press killed handwriting. No need for scribes and the like.
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6/10/2009, 11:05 pm
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Saijen SilverWolf
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Re: Ballpoint pen...did you know?
Very cool tidbit of info there!!
--- Blessed Be,
~*~ Saijen ~*~
~~*~~ .~~*~~
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6/11/2009, 9:28 pm
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Firlefanz
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Re: Ballpoint pen...did you know?
It sure helped me understand why a ballpoint pen is called a "biro" in Spanish.
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6/12/2009, 6:53 am
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Fenyx
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Re: Ballpoint pen...did you know?
Thanks Madness - I am a pen-aholic so this was really interesting.
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6/12/2009, 11:34 am
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