From time to time I run into this old guy named Bill when I go to visit my father. We have random conversations and usually get back to the broad topic of all those things which exist today but were invented during his lifetime. One of the things which shocked him the most was a recent conversation he had with a Millenial who said out loud he thought ballpoint pens always existed.
While it is true that ballpoint pens have existed since before either he or I were born, that doesn’t make them “always” exist. In truth, given the massive prices quoted for early pens in the Wikipedia article, none of us would ever have held a ballpoint pen if it wasn’t for Marcel Bich and his Bic Crystal stick pen.
Bic Crystal
Why? The post World War II blue collar wages meant someone couldn’t afford a $12 pen to keep in their pocket. Minimum wage was only up to $3.25/hr when I got my gas station job in the early 1980s. Some of the better paying factory worker jobs were paying around $12/hr then, so, have a think on just how much blue collar workers in the 1950s were making.
While the Wikipedia article claims it was the “Writes First Time Every Time” marketing campaign of the 1960s which made Bic a global household name, I would say it had more to do with the fact Bic could make a highly reliable ballpoint pen cheap enough the blue collar masses could afford to let their children take them to school. A quick search of OfficeMax shows they are offering one dozen blank ink for $3.79 right now. They get even cheaper during back to school sales. Yes, you can find even cheaper store/nobrand stick pens in the office supply catalogs as well.
If simple stick pens were still $12 each you wouldn’t have companies and people printing promotional information on them and handing them out like business cards. Yes, most bank counter pens still have a chain on them, but, it’s not because the pens themselves are expensive, it’s just so annoying to keep replacing them.
Bank counter pen set
I know. During my junior college days, we couldn’t keep a pen which wrote nice on the counter. Everybody had to sign the multi-part credit card receipt back then. If a pen wrote nice, it walked off. The ones which skipped, blotted or drug like a wood chisel would stay on the counter until they ran out of ink, but, a cheap stick or click pen which wrote nice simply left.
Personally, I always wondered why companies who use pens to advertise general services, handyman, carpet cleaning, car detailing, etc. didn’t just leave a box of pens by the register at every gas station in their area. We lost three a day when we were trying to hang onto them. A small cup of pens with a “help yourself” logo would be empty before noon if any of them wrote nice.
So, no Millenials. While the ballpoint pen has existed since before you or I were born, it hasn’t always existed. If it hadn’t been for Bic slashing the price so every working family could afford them, we might only have those expensive pen and pencil sets you got for graduation meaning you wouldn’t have been able to do much with ink in school. Even Papermate, one of the earlier pen companies had to come out with a nice writing cheap stick pen to compete with Bic. I see OfficeMax has them for $2.79/dozen.
Just because a need is there and the technology existed doesn’t mean it is priced appropriately and without that it won’t be adopted. While most of you probably don’t write checks, during the 1960s through to the early 1990s they were the primary method of paying bills. Even gas stations took checks back then. This banking revolution was not possible without a large supply of affordable ink pens. The consumer banking industry simply could not have taken off. While you drag your finger or the stick across that touch screen to “sign” today, it was neither possible nor allowed then. Ink on paper was the law of the land.
