This is all about the biro, and they are filled with ink in every colour of the rainbow these days, with possibly everyone having at least one. There are some arguments over who first invented it, as it was first patented in October 1888 as a ‘ballpoint pen’ by John J Loud, an American, but wasn’t patented as a Biro until 1943.

Why is it called a biro?

Can you imagine inventing something and forever your name would be associated with it? Ballpoint pens will forever be called Biros no matter who manufactures them, same as Sellotape for sticky tape, Kleenex for tissues, etc. The list is endless.

Biro is the surname of the man who is attributed to inventing it - László József Bíró, a journalist, Hungarian by birth from Argentina, along with his brother George, a dentist with a useful knowledge of chemistry, and a friend Juan Jorge Meyne. László had noticed a fundamental difference between ink for fountain pens that was easy to smudge and needed time to dry, and the ink used in newspaper printing presses, that dried fast and didn’t smudge. He tried using newspaper ink in a fountain pen, to find it was too thick to flow through the nib, so he set himself the task of inventing something he could use that had the qualities of both inks, and perfected the design of the ballpoint pen, where a ball that rotated freely in a socket distributed special ink from a reservoir. It is said that Bíró was watching children playing with marbles when he noticed how one ball rolled through a puddle that left a trail on the dry ground. Could this have been the light-bulb moment for revolutionising his idea?

Credits: Pexels; Author: Pixabay;

According to legend, his newly invented pen came to the attention of a British clerk who saw the potential of it for airplane navigators that wasn’t dependent on pressure for ink distribution and would work well at high altitudes, and 30,000 were bought by the British Government for the Royal Air Force.

But Biro wasn’t the one who made the money

He sold the patent rights to numerous entities over the years, and many types of ballpoint pen were put on the market. American Marcel Bich, however, whose company later enjoyed great success with its lighters and disposable razors, became really rich indeed.

‘Writes the First Time, Every Time!’

This was the advertising catchphrase taken up by Marcel Bich, who licenced the ballpoint pen design from Biro and created the BIC company in 1953, and in fact the slogan led the company’s business to take off. John J Loud and Milton Reynolds in the US also had an interest in the ballpoint pen, and nowadays the terms Biro, BIC and ballpoint pens are used interchangeably when talking of this type of pen.

Credits: Pexels; Author: Ylanite Koppens;

Ballpoint Pen Facts

The ink in the ballpoint pen is a kind of paste and has been coloured with various compounds to create the varied colours we see today, and the varieties are endless, from retractable, to fine liners, to ones that are so cheap you can buy in packs and not worry about losing them. They say you can write an average of 50,000 words, or 100 pages of text with just one pen! The first pens in New York sold at $12 each - the equivalent of a day’s wages - but nowadays they can range from around €1 each to an astonishing €195,00 for a limited-edition Mont Blanc diamond encrusted one!

An amazing fact – each second of every day, more than 125 ballpoint pens are sold. I personally think they collect and breed and then migrate - you find you have a drawer full of them, and the next thing you know, they are all gone, having emigrated as a pack to some hiding place and you will never see them again.