Ballpoint Pen facts
While investigating facts about Ballpoint Pen Refills and Ballpoint Pen Inventor, I found out little known, but curios details like:
The BIC Crystal ballpoint pen was first sold in the US in 1959 for $0.19. It is still sold for approximately $0.19 even with inflation.
how ballpoint pens work?
For the past 50 years, the Skilcraft US Government ballpoint pen has been produced by sight-impaired workers under an 80-year-old program dating to the New Deal to employ blind Americans.
What's ballpoint pen made of?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what is a non ballpoint pen. Here are 29 of the best facts about Ballpoint Pen Invented and Ballpoint Pen Brands I managed to collect.
what's ballpoint pen?
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That, despite producing about 38 billion ballpoint pens each year, China had yet to acquire the technology to produce their own pen tips domestically until 2017.
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In the UK ballpoint pens are called biros after their inventor, Laszlo Biro. He fled to Argentina in 1938 to avoid Nazi persecution and made pens for the Royal Air Force during WW2.
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The first ballpoint pens in America sold for $12.50, the equivalent of $164 today.
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When the original card back art for Magic the Gathering was sent to the printers, it had an accidental ballpoint pen mark on it. The same pen mark has now been on every MTC card for 23+ years.
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Despite China being famous for manufacturing most of the world's goods, it was 2017 when China mastered the art of manufacturing ballpoint pens.
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Cursive writing was invented to accommodate the limitations of the quill, and starting falling out of favor in the 30s and 40s after the invention of the ballpoint pen.
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The difference between ballpoint and rollerball pens isn't the pen, but the ink inside. Ballpoint pens use a paste-like oil-based ink while Rollerballs use low-viscosity water-based inks and gels to achieve an effect similar to a fountain pen.
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Marcel Bich dropped the "H" from his last name to avoid mispronunciation while marketing his newest product, a ballpoint pen. Today, more than 100 billion Bic Cristal pens have been sold worldwide
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An experiment was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of various pens for use in an emergency tracheotomy, only two tested were acceptable (“Baron retractable ballpoint and the BIC soft feel Jumbo”)
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The tip of a ballpoint pen is almost as hard as a diamond
Why ballpoint pen was invented?
You can easily fact check why ballpoint pens were invented by examining the linked well-known sources.
László József Bíró, mostly known for inventing the ballpoint pen (BE: biro), also invented an automatic transmission. It was never used though, because GM just bought its rights to prevent others from using it.
The biggest ballpoint pen ever made was in India. It has a length of 5.5m and weighs 37.23kg, and it's fully functioning. - source
A regular ballpoint pen will work in space - source
The first ballpoint pen was sold in the US and cost $12.50 about $170 today
BIC has sold more than 100 billion ballpoint pens globally since 1950, which is enough to draw a line to the moon and back more than 320,000 times. - source
When ballpoint pen invented?
China was technologically incapable of making the tips of Ballpoint Pens until 2017. Apparently only a handful of countries can.
How ballpoint pens are made?
Spies need to submit expense reports for things like ballpoint pens, safe houses, and pornography.
It took a team of 66 people to engineer the Parker retractable ballpoint pen mechanism
BIC raised to fame for selling ballpoint pens for pennies in the 1950s. Their pens still look the same today.
It took a team of 66 people to design the first retractable ballpoint pen [03:48]
