The History Of The Pen

THE HISTORY OF THE PEN! 3500BC > 3000 вс The first language to ever be written down was Sumerian, carved and chiselled into stone walls or tablets. The next prominent form of writing could be found in Ancient Egypt, which emerged 500 years later. Papyrus became their writing material of choice and the Egyptians developed an ink and tool to be used on papyrUS. IAIN IAIN 700AD 1000 BC Feather quills came to prominence around 700AD in Europe. The ideal quill was supposedly one of the 5 outer feathers of a large living bird's left wing, harvested during the spring months. The quill retained its popularity for well over 1000 years. This tool would be refined into the reed pen, the first utensil that would resemble the modern pen. The downfall of the reed tools were that they were quite brittle and would break or dull easily. 1800 1880s the saw the mass production The fountain pen was developed at the start of the 19th century and for over 100 years attempts at developing a durable pen that could hold its own supply of ink were thwarted with prototypes that resulted in spillages, breakages and general inefficiencies that prevented their marketability. of fountain pens. They were filled with either the use of a pipette to feed the ink into the pen's body or by placing the nib of the pen into a pot of ink. 2 simple observations < the 1950s The ball point pen was invented by a journalist who made 2 simple observations; that the ink from a fountain pen took time to dry and could therefore be smudged, and the ink used in newspaper printing dried practically on contact with the paper. He set out to discover a means by which the gelatinous ink could be transferred from a cartridge and onto paper, and eventually the answer became clear to them - a ball bearing. The invention bore his own name: Biro. The disposable ink cartridges that are predominantly used these days were not developed until the mid-20th century. by 1957 PENS UNLIMITED The Biro was to become the most popular pen in the world, and still enjoys unbridled popularity with over 14,000,000 pens sold daily! www.pensunlimited.co.uk