Pens & writing instruments

If you are in the market for a writing pen today, then you have no shortage of options. You can choose from fountain pens, rollerball pens, ballpoint pens, quill pens, gel ink pens, antler ballpoint pens and many other styles of pens. Not only do you have a wide selection of styles of pens but you also have a tremendous variety of manufacturers making them. Some of the most widely known pen brands out there are Parker Pens, Waterman pens, Cross Pens, Mont Blanc pens, Bic Pens and a number of others including handcarved antler ballpoint pens. Nobody gives the lowly pen the credit that this writing instrument is due, if you think about it the lowly pen is writing history every day. Leaving a trail of human culture for all that follow. Think how much easier of a time the cave man would have had if he only had a pen.

Speaking of cavemen, the history of the writing pen dates back as far as 3000 B.C. when they were made from bamboo and stalks of reed. The origin of the English word “pen” is derived from the latin word “penna” meaning bird feather. Early civilizations used bird feathers widely in their civilizations including being used as early writing instruments. The best feathers to use for pens were those of larger birds like a swan or goose. The pen began developing into the instrument we know today when L.E. Waterman invented the venerable fountain pen. It then developed one step further when Laszlo Biro incorporated ball bearings into the design and invented the ball point pen in 1944. The next step in the evolutionary process of the pen was the felt tip pen invented by a Tokyo stationary firm in 1960.

The timeline of the history of writing pens is several thousand years long. Let’s take a look at a few of the milestones:

• 4000 years B.C. ancient man scratched pictures into soft clay with a wooden stick.
• 3000 years B.C. Egyptians started using reeds and feathers to make inscriptions.
• 1300 B.C. the romans used a metal rod to imprint on sheets of wax.
• Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxons used a wax pen to write on bars of wood.
• 600-1800 A.D. Europeans began improving on earlier designs. The Quill pen appeared for the first time in Spain and was the writing instrument of choice for the next 1200 years.
• 1790 the pencil was invented by the French.
• 1800-1850ies. An early version of a metal fountain pen was invented in 1803.
• Lewis Edson Waterman, an insurance agent, invented the first fountain pen in 1844.
• 1943 – The invention of what we now call the ball point pen is credited to Laszlo and George Biro.
• 1953 the first mass produced and economical ball point pens arrived on the scene manufactured by the Bic company. Bic pens are still one of the most economical pens available on the market today and are extremely popular.
• 1960 – Felt tip pens became all the rage.
• 1980s – Not content with ballpoint technology, rollerball pens arrived that used new technology and produced a clean and fluid feel to their action.
• 1990s – Gel Ink pens arrived on the scene and again produced an improved fluidity and feel to the pen. They took America by storm.

Every time we think the pen is as good as it gets, technology shows us otherwise. It’s hard to predict what the next 50 years will bring us in writing technology.

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