This month marks 80 years since one of the vital influential but underrated innovations burst onto the market in New York on October 29, 1945. The Biro could seem unremarkable, however it quick grew to become a part of our on a regular basis lives and revolutionized communications.
Editor’s be aware: Readers typically ask us for follow-ups on memorable tales. What has occurred to this story through the years? This text was initially revealed in 2021 however has been re-edited and up to date with new data present as of November, 2025. Take pleasure in!
Yearly, staggering numbers of ballpoint pens are bought. One mannequin from one model alone sells at a fee of 57 each second and had racked up gross sales of 100 billion by 2006. Bear in mind, that is not all pens or these of 1 firm. It is only one mannequin from one firm. Add up the worldwide gross sales of each model and it’s little marvel that Douglas Adams as soon as imagined a fictional planet the place misplaced biros migrate by means of wormholes in area to take pleasure in biro-oriented existence.
These pens go by many names around the globe, however they’re identified primarily by two monikers. One is “ballpoint pen,” which describes the precept behind it, and “biro,” which is the identify of the person who invented the primary sensible model.
Regardless of the identify, these pens are so low cost that they seem to be a prime instance of the disposable age. When one stops writing, it is thrown away as a result of there’s certain to be a alternative sitting in a drawer someplace, and if not, three scores will be purchased for the worth of a small latte.
In actual fact, we take them utterly with no consideration. They’re often at hand, we decide them up and use them with out even fascinated with it. They’re a lot part of our lives that we neglect what sophisticated pieces of technology they’re till we want one and haven’t got one. It is a small marvel, due to this fact, that emergency equipment lists typically embrace pens.
Earlier than the Biro
However the place did the ballpoint come from? What’s so particular about it?
Earlier than the biro, writing with ink hadn’t modified a lot since historical instances when individuals used to chop goose quills into nibs with a slit within the tip to carry ink to convey to a sheet of paper, vellum, or papyrus. A few hundred years in the past, pens with metal nibs have been launched, and within the nineteenth century, fountain pens have been invented that might maintain a reservoir of ink in a rubber bladder within the barrel.
However these pens all had very critical limitations, and fountain pens have been additionally so costly they have been typically given as presents to mark vital events like college graduations. Plus there have been many supplies fountain pens could not write on in any respect.
The concept of changing the nib with a bit steel ball rolling in a socket to gather and ship ink is not a brand new one. In 1888, the American John J. Loud patented a crude ballpoint pen that might write on leather-based, wooden, and coarse wrapping paper. This did not work very properly, did not promote, and the patents have been allowed to lapse. Through the years, many different makes an attempt to provide a ballpoint pen have been made, however these have been extraordinarily crude and will typically barely scribble a legible phrase, or they leaked like a sieve after they did not clog.
László Bíró
Then, within the Nineteen Thirties, László Bíró got here alongside. When he wasn’t working as a newspaper editor in his native Hungary, he was attempting his hand as a hypnotist, race automobile driver, and surrealist painter, amongst many different issues. At present, he is an inductee into the Nationwide Inventors Corridor of Fame and his life makes for an intriguing story.
Public Area
As a journalist, one factor that Bíró discovered irritating about his job was how impractical fountain pens have been, discovering them gradual to fill, tending to splatter, leaving smudged pages, and the ink was gradual to dry. In distinction, he was impressed by the ink used to publish his newspaper, which dried virtually immediately and did not smudge.
With assistance from his brother György, who was a dentist with a background in chemistry, Bíró got down to create a brand new ballpoint pen design primarily based on viscous ink just like newsprint. After many false begins and setbacks, each technical and monetary, the ultimate consequence was a pen with a metal ball in a socket and an ink barrel stuffed with an ink paste that did not evaporate like typical ink. This straightforward description covers plenty of work to find the proper form for the ball, the proper composition for the ink, and getting a dozen particulars sorted out, however it did lead to a British patent in 1938.
Argentina and the Second World Conflict
Bíró’s work got here at a time of political turmoil within the days earlier than the outbreak of the Second World War. The Hungarian authorities was rising overtly fascist and, as Jews, Bíró’s household was more and more threatened. Luckily, an opportunity assembly at a resort with the then-president of Argentina, Augustín Pedro Justo, led to an invite to arrange store in Argentina and Bíró and his household fled there by means of France after many delays.
This may occasionally have made the Bíró household safer, however advertising and marketing the brand new pen, now referred to as the Biro, was nonetheless removed from straightforward. Because of monetary and private issues, Bíró’s invention ended up muddled in a lot of worldwide patents and licensing agreements in numerous firms and people in numerous nations.
It appeared as if the Biro would by no means attain a mass market, however the struggle modified the fledgling firm’s fortunes when the brand new pen got here to the eye of the British Ministries of Provide and Plane Manufacturing, which organized for an order for 30,000 models for the RAF, whose pilots needed to write of their logs, mark charts, and make calculations whereas in flight, in order that they wanted a pen that would not leak like fountain pens did at excessive altitudes and could possibly be dealt with as casually as a pencil.
Put up-war
After the struggle, Bíró tweaked the design to make the ink move extra easily by making it move by capillary motion slightly than gravity, so the pen could possibly be held at totally different angles. In the meantime, different firms grew to become desirous about ballpoint pens and both secured the rights to Bíró’s design or discovered methods round his patents by reverse engineering.
In 1945, Biros hit the market en masse in the USA and Britain with combined outcomes due to stiff competitors, such because the Reynolds firm, which made a cope with Gimbels division retailer in New York to promote its model of the ballpoint pen, the “Reynolds Rocket”, transferring 30,000 of them within the first week.
Sadly, the entire pens by numerous firms had one factor in widespread: they have been all extremely costly, with the Reynolds pen promoting for US$12.50, which is the equal of $192.00 in 2021 {dollars}. Because of this, the small market was quickly saturated and plenty of firms folded.
Then, within the Fifties, the French entrepreneur Marcel Bich licensed the Bíró design and improved upon it by making it extraordinarily low cost to provide. This grew to become the well-known Bic Cristal, often known as the Bic Pen, which consisted of a easy ballpoint fastened to a clear plastic reservoir set in a hexagonal plastic tube with a mysterious little gap half means right down to equalize air stress. This rapidly grew to become the world’s best-selling pen and was quickly adopted by many imitators that bought within the billions.
Because the Bíró was launched, the design has remained largely unchanged. Nevertheless, there have been improvements through the years. A yr after the extremely profitable Bic Cristal hit the retailers, the Parker firm started promoting its Jotter with its glossy design and dependable retractor mechanism that grew to become the usual for over half a century. In 1962, Yukio Horie of the Tokyo Stationery Firm (later Pentel) invented the trendy fiber-tipped pen, which turned the marker pen right into a sensible writing instrument.
Through the heyday of the House Race, Paul C. Fisher invented his Fisher Space Pen, which changed the usual ink cartridge with a pressurized model so it may write in zero gravity, making it the primary pen used to put in writing on the Moon in the course of the Apollo missions. Together with this got here the rollerball pen after which the gel pen, which used new ink recipes for smoother writing in a wide range of vibrant colours.
The Biro Revolution
Earlier than the Biro, writing was a ritual. Go into any resort greater than a century previous that hasn’t been extensively renovated, and also you’re more likely to see writing desks within the foyer and even within the rooms for the visitors.
In the event you wished to put in writing, you did not simply pull your pen out of your pocket and start scribbling. You wanted a agency, flat floor. You wanted the proper grade of paper, a serviceable pen, pen wipes to wash the nibs, an inkwell, blotting paper, a blotter, and gum arabic sand to sop up extra ink – to not point out persistence sufficient to let the ink dry. In the event you have been well-off, you might need a fountain pen, which did away with the inkwell, however not utterly since fountain pens wanted to be refilled day by day if the author was prolific. If not, the ink would nonetheless dry within the reservoir.
On high of all this, how one wrote with these previous pens was very totally different from at present, past having to maintain dipping a nib pen within the ink each few phrases. With a ballpoint pen, one presses the tip to the paper and the ink merely rolls out onto the fibers. Nevertheless, with a nib or fountain pen, the ink flows out underneath gravity or, in additional elaborate fountain pens, the pressure of a piston. As well as, writing with them required nice focus to keep away from splattering ink or tearing the paper with the sharp steel nib.
Small marvel that writers and clerks could possibly be simply recognized by their ink-stained fingers and shirts.
Because of this, it is a lot simpler to put in writing with older pens by conserving the nib in opposition to the paper and lifting it as little as potential. Writing in cursive with such pens is comparatively quick and simple and the outcomes are legible. Writing block letters, as many do at present, is gradual, messy, and arduous to learn.
With a ballpoint, one can write with out pondering, on virtually any floor, and even underwater, when you really feel the urge to take action. There are even pens that may work within the weightlessness of area. It is a expertise that’s so ingenious in its simplicity we do not even give it some thought till our pen runs out of ink.
Although most individuals have not seen as a result of it occurred too slowly, the Biro has modified how we write. At present, writing in block letters is more and more widespread and cursive is so uncommon that it is typically requested if it is even price educating it to kids any extra. It is an evolution that has altered written communications in a means not seen because the invention of the printing press and relegated its predecessors to the backwaters of calligraphy and nostalgia.
So, the subsequent time you scribble the tip and signal the invoice at a restaurant, take a second to contemplate the game-changing story that made that straightforward act potential.
A model of this text was initially revealed in 2021. New Atlas could obtain fee if you are going to buy by means of our Amazon hyperlinks
