• 20/06/2013
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Pens: The Ancient Piece of Stationery

As with most inventions the pen was first used in ancient China in the first millennium BC. These early pens took the form of a brush made from camel or rat hair, ink was supplied by plant extracts and in some cases human blood. Some historians dispute the Chinese invention of the pen as substantial evidence exists to suggest that the Ancient Egyptians were making use of primitive pens at the same time. The Egyptian pens were constructed from either reeds or bamboo with frayed edges.

Pens seem to have slipped into obscurity for several centuries, until they remerged in post Roman, Dark Age Europe. This was due to the high demand of written Christian texts; monks solved this problem by utilising Goose quills.

Between 600 and 1800 AD the development of the pen stagnated with individuals settling for the Quill, which whilst doing the job had an extremely short lifespan, and demanded constant maintenance and tweaking to remain usable. During this time Geese were specifically bred for the sole purpose of quill production. The average Goose could produce between 10 and 12 quills. At the peak of the European quill trade Russia sent an astounding 27 million quills per year to the UK alone.

The inception of the modern pen came with the patented invention by Bryan Donkin in 1803 of the steel pen. By 1830 his invention was in wide circulation, with mass production of cheap, long wearing steel pen nibs being produced at a steel works in Birmingham. However the quill managed to survive in wide use until the middle of the 19^th century when it was made obsolete with the introduction of the fountain pen. These were the first pens able to hold ink internally, although the origin of their invention is largely unknown. It took until 1905 for the practical clip to be added to the lid, which was the brainchild of Frank Edson Waterman.

Despite being able to store ink internally, refilling these new fountain pens was a messy exercise! In 1927 a director at Waterman patented the first ink cartridge, although primitive, the first design consisted of a glass tube with a cork top, the idea was born and ink storage as we now know it began in earnest.

The concept of the ball point pen is attributed to Van Vechten Riesberg in 1916; however he mainly kept his idea to himself, never releasing it for widespread manufacture. It took a further 27 years for a mass produced ball point pen toemerge. It came in the form of the biro, created by Hungarian Journalist Laszlo Josef Biro. His idea of a free rotating tiny metal ball, in a socket fed by a pool of ink, created a pen with rapidly drying ink. The biro was patented in 1943 and was snapped up by the British government who aimed to use it with the Royal Air Force, as the fountain pens they had previously used flooded at high altitudes

Ball Point pens began commercial sale in Buenos Aires in 1945 market under the catch line of “the first pen to write underwater – you never know when you might need one.” However these pens were still exceptionally expensive. It wasn’t until 1953 when more affordable models were launched. Promo Parrot is incredibly grateful to Laszlo Josef Biro and provides bulk orders of his now iconic Biro in a range of models to clients all over the world.