Angles from Above

http://artwanted.com/imageview.cfm?id=388057 May this angle find her way home and report what's going on here to our Father, amen. This picture was dedicated to the King's Daughter National Convention or meetings that were to take place a Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas this year. Those meetings were put together to bring women of the world together to deal with their royal heritage as a daughter of God, amen!

I think the frame, matting, colors within the picture work well together. The contrasted lettering and arrangement also seems to balance out everything. I like very much how this picture and format came out. You might open the link in order to see 67 other comments via artwanted.

Elders Health Weekly

http://artwanted.com/imageview.cfm?id=400116 This very detailed red portrait is one of my favorite or best drawings. The dark colorful bold framing certainly helps the delicate artwork stand out even onder that varried lettering. The line work, wonderful shading, mood and expressive picture stands out plus holds its own. A true masterpiece that works well with other surrounding materials.

I really like drawing older people or men because of the many wrinkles within their faces.This drawing was completed with a red oil based ballpoint pen as many of my works are. That's because red is my favorite color plus I like doing mono or one colored pictures. Today this picutre has 83 comments via artwanted.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn

http://artwanted.com/imageview.cfm?id=371868 Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn is one of my favorite artist of history. He however did many of his paintings using dark colors unlike this bright red ballpoint pen drawing. I did however capture a likeness from the self portrait painting he did that looks much like this picture. I thought another colored frame would work better than this black and red one yet I tried it anyway.

A ballpoint has the largest ink reserve of all pen systems throughout hostory. That really makes an ink drawing like this work much better becaue miles of lines or color can be piled on the page. Bold flowing dark red lines or areas make up this great drawing. Quick or bold flowing lines certain mark what a ballpoint pen can do other system simply can't do. The link leads to 37 other peoples comments as of today.

Yellow Woman

http://artwanted.com/imageview.cfm?id=265955 I love this particular multi colored ballpoint pen artwork. The link will send you to 62 other comments pertaining this this beauty. I love this brilliant colored picture because its refreshing, pretty, bold, exciting and a fun artwork to look at. Perhapes the different colored or shaped eyes, the bright yelllow, red or blue sections bring things together really nice. Needless to say, I'm a colorist and in this case an impressionist.

The ballpoint's oil based inks deliever darker or richer colors than all other pen systems. Bold long flowing lines, dark rich colors and subtle half tone lines mark what a ballpoint pen can do as an art medium. I've done far more pictures of men that women as an artist. In spite of that this delightful portrait is a dandy!

Mystery of Thought

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Henry Miller

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Picasso

Albrecht Durer

Albrecht Dürer

Red Man Impression

Gold ballpoint oil based ink

Happy Days

A Man of Color

Tourist

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International Art Movement

Modanna

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Moses

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Mother Teresa

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Micheal Jackson

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California Tower

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Leonardo de Vinci

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Togetherness

Haines, Alaska

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Auguste Renior

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Can You See Me Now

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On the Clock

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Old Man

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I feel You

President

Multifaces

Standford Man

Mixed Media

This particular artwork was completed with a ballpoint pen then run through my computer to alter the finished product. Today the world is depending on a computer for many things and people are doing pictures or artworks via a computer. I therefore decided to see what a computer's software could do and this is came out. I like the rexture, hightlights, balance and powerful contrast. http://artwanted.com/imageview.cfm?id=427230

Many artists seem to forget that we live in the most capitalistic society in history. They produce a picture, put it on a wall or internet somewhere and think its all over. This ballpoint pen drawing was framed then formated as a comercial art project. The lettering brings in words, numbers, symbls and reading into effect. That opens up a totally new horizons in the real world we all live within. http://artwanted.com/imageview.cfm?id=414693

I love this lively multi-colored framed ballpoint pen drawing of John Wayne. It has great high lights, contrast, motion, colors and balance in my opinion. The colorful frame seems to work for me as well because it wakes up my eyes! http://artwanted.com/imageview.cfm?id=365878

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Ghandi

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Pablo

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Madonna

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Agape Love

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The Youth

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Senator

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Neon City

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Communiity Unity

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The Sleeper

Who

Santa Cruz

Hubert

BallPoint Pen Art- Jerry Stith

Multi-colored oil based inks

Multi-colored oil based ballpoint pen inks upgraded the Pen & Ink art movement and its four thousand year history! A BallPoint has out sold all other pen systems throughout mankinds history. The oil based inks produced the richest, darkest or prettiest colors in pen history. That advancement places pen and ink's colors on the same level as other art mediums. Needless to say, that's a great event for those interested in doing colored pen and ink artworks or drawings!

In the past Lindy Pens produced the most colored ballpoint inks and today it seems Fisher Space Pens leads the way. The ballpoint is the only pen system in history to use oil based inks that can produce a half tone plus rich colored artworks. Those two features are "Historical" or "News Worthy" to those in the know!

Introducing multi-colored oil based inks, half tones and bold flowing lines via a ballpoint pen is art history in the making.

My name is Jerry Stith and I'm the founder of an Amercian folk art program called Ball Point Pen Art, Ball Point Pen Art or Ballpointpenart. I'm the largest Pen and Ink or BallPoint Pen Art network in history on the Internet. This Blog has published information pertaining to paper, ink, pen and art history related to ballpoint pen art history.

Jerry Stith

Fisher Space Pen: Infomation

History of the Fisher Space Pen

Paul Fisher developed the Fisher Space Pen almost 40 years ago during a time when the 'race for space' was being fought. When astronauts began to fly they used ordinary pencils. The lead of these pencils could easily brake off causing dangerous situations when they floated around in the gravity-less space cabin. A safer and more reliable writing instrument was needed, the Fisher Space Pen. More than one million dollars went into the development of the Fisher Space Pen and in 1965 Paul Fisher successfully developed the first pressurized Fisher Space Pens. Get your own Important dates for Fisher:

1965 - Patent # 3,285,228: zero gravity space pen, original AG7 zero gravity pens were developed by Paul Fisher
1968 - Fisher Space Pen used on Apollo 7 after two years of testing by NASA
1976 - The Fisher Space Pen Co moves into its 30,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Boulder City, Nevada from Van Nuys, California
1980 - Paul Fisher selected as Small Business Person of the Year for the State of Nevada
1983 - Fisher Space Pen is used by Ronald Reagan to sign the Proclamation inaugurating the Air and Space Bicentennial Year to celebrate Man's first flight in a hot air balloon near Paris France
1985 - Fisher Space pen Co. produces the Stowaway pen line manufactured using genuine gold from the treasure recovered from the 1622 Spanish Galleon - Nuestra Senora de Atocha
1995-96 - Fisher Space Pen Co. received the Nevada Governor's Industrial Appreciation Award as Exporter of the Year
1996 - Good Morning America names the Fisher Space Pen a best stocking stuffer
1996 - Fisher licensed to produce 150th Anniversary Pens for the Smithsonian
1997 - Fisher Space Pen is used during Everest North Face Ski Expedition. Associated Press released a national article on the Fisher Space Pen Co.
1998 - The Fisher Space Pen is used on the Russian Space Station Mir to write the letters QVV

Interview with Paul C. Fisher, inventor of the Fisher Space Pen:
The Fisher Space Pen was developed by Paul C. Fisher. Below is an interview with Mr. Fisher as featured on AudiologyOnline.com in which Mr. Fisher tells about how he started with the development of the Fisher Space Pen and how the Fisher Space Pen saved the Apollo 11 mission back in 1969. Did you know the Fisher Space Pen also has a flaw? No? Well keep on reading because Mr. Fisher reveals it in this interview!

Dr. Beck: Hi Mr. Fisher. It is an honour to meet you.

Paul C. Fisher: Thank you Doug, it is a pleasure to meet you too.

Dr. Beck: Mr Fisher, I know that you are a wonderfully creative man. Can you review a little of your history for the readers?

Paul C. Fisher: Sure. I am one of the pioneers in the ball pen business. I started trying to improve the ball pen in 1945 after World War II. I worked for Milton Reynolds in August, 1945. Mr. Reynolds introduced the ball pen to the world. He gave me one of the pens, and I worked with it for two days and then I reported back to him that the pens were no good at all, the basic principle wasn't any good, and that I wasn't going to be part of it, and I walked out. You see, my job was to perfect the ball pen. And it seemed that was not an accomplishable task!

Dr. Beck: So you actually just left?

Paul C. Fisher: Well, yes, pretty much, I saw it as dead end and I left. In October of that year, Mr. Reynolds introduced a pen that sold for $12.50 each, and the lines were three blocks long to get a new, fabulous ball pen! Of course, in the back of the store -- the lines were two blocks long with people that wanted refunds! The pens leaked everywhere. He made about 5 million dollars in 45 days on that terrible pen, and then he hired my best friend as the general manager, and his goal was to design a pen that could sell for $3.85.

Dr. Beck: How did you get back involved with the ball pen?

Paul C. Fisher: My friend called me. He said he was way over his head and asked if I could help. I didn't charge him anything, I designed the tooling and the pen, and we used surplus aluminium and made our own tooling too. Three months later my friend cornered me and he said this pen is pretty good, but we still need to perfect it, and I think you're the guy to do that. And I've been working on it ever since.

Dr. Beck: And I should mention that a lot of your knowledge regarding the ball pen and how to make that work was based on your knowledge and work with ball bearings for airplane propellers. Yes. That's right, and that's how I learned about ball bearings, during World War II. In 1954, we finally got a good ink, and after that, we were able to lead the world in pen technology.

Dr. Beck: Very good, and how did you start working with NASA?

Paul C. Fisher: In 1965, NASA came to us and they said they had been using pencils in space flight, and they said that pencils were too dangerous to use in space during long flights because of the debris and the scrap. NASA asked us, would you make us a pen? I said, I've been trying to make a good pen for 20 years and it cannot be done. They were not deterred….they said Mr. Fisher, you do more pen research than anyone else, and we'd like you to try again. Well, that made me think. Then about two nights later I had an interesting dream. My father had died about two years before, and in that dream, he came to me and said Paul, if you add a minute amount of rosin to the ink, that will stop the oozing. I told the chemist about that, and the chemist laughed! He said that won't work…. he tried every type and quantity of rosin. Three months later he came back to me and he said I was right! He said he was trying to find a way to make rosin work, but then he realized that I meant resin! He used two percent resin, and it worked fine. Even with 140 pounds of air pressure behind it, it didn't leak. I called NASA and told them we could do it, and we developed the most valuable patent in all of the pen industry. And our pens have been used ever since in all of the manned space flights.

Dr. Beck: And if I recall, there was an emergency repair in space that had to do with one of your pens?

Paul C. Fisher: Yes, it was during the Apollo 11 flight. In 1969, the astronauts were on the moon, and I was in Vienna because my partner and I owned a pen manufacturing plant there. Anyway, what happened was that one of the astronauts' backpacks had collided with the plastic arming switch used to start the jets to blast off from the moon. The astronauts were in the lunar lander and they had already discarded the tools onto the lunar surface, they had closed and sealed the hatch and re-pressurized the space craft. They found out that they couldn't throw the arming switch! They had no tools and they couldn't figure out how to start the lander! They called the engineers back at Mission Control. Mission Control called Grumman Aircraft, and one of the electricians on Earth figured out that if he took the Fisher Space Pen (the Fisher Space Pen zero gravity, the AG-7 zero gravity pen) which was in his pocket, and if he retracted the point, he was able to use the pen casing to throw the switch.

The Engineer told this to Grumman, they called Mission Control, and Mission Control told the guys on the moon, and it worked! The story was all over Vienna, and the headlines said Vienna Pen Saves Moon Program. But when I got back to the USA, nobody had heard the story! So it was really an amazing occurrence, and the Space Pen was used to save the mission.

Interestingly, NASA never told their negative stories to the press, and so I couldn't confirm the story for a while. But if you're old enough you'll recall that when the guys came back from the moon, they were quarantined.

Dr. Beck: Yes, I remember that. The scientists wanted to make sure the astronauts were not carrying a virus or lunar germ back to Earth and they were in isolation for at least a week or two, maybe a month?

Paul C. Fisher: That's right. Well, one of the public relations fellows at NASA, named Mr. McLeaish was a friend of mine, and he told me that the story was true, and that the Fisher Space Pen did save the mission.

Dr. Beck: Mr. Fisher, I think that says it all. You've been very generous with your time. Thank you so much!

Paul C. Fisher: One last thing Doctor. I should also tell you the flaw in the Fisher Space Pen.
Dr. Beck: Sure, please do.

Paul C. Fisher: I've noticed that sometimes when I use the Fisher Space Pen, it spells incorrectly!

NASA Space Pen Urban Legend

The Truth About the NASA Space Pen Urban Legend

During the first NASA missions the astronauts used pencils. For Project Gemini, for example, NASA ordered mechanical pencils in 1965 from Tycam Engineering Manufacturing, Inc., in Houston. The fixed price contract purchased 34 units at a total cost of $4,382.50, or $128.89 per unit. That created something of a controversy at the time, as many people believed it was a frivolous expense. NASA backtracked immediately and equipped the astronauts with less costly items.

During this time period, Paul C. Fisher of the Fisher Pen Co. designed a ballpoint pen that would operate better in the unique environment of space. His new pen, with a pressurized ink cartridge, functioned in a weightless environment, underwater, in other liquids, and in temperature extremes ranging from -50 F to +400 F.

Fisher developed his space pen with no NASA funding.
The company reportedly invested about $1 million of its own funds in the effort then patented its product and cornered the market as a result.

Fisher offered the pens to NASA in 1965, but, because of the earlier controversy, the agency was hesitant in its approach. In 1967, after rigorous tests, NASA managers agreed to equip the Apollo astronauts with these pens. Media reports indicate that approximately 400 pens were purchased from Fisher at $6 per unit for Project Apollo.

The Soviet Union also purchased 100 of the Fisher pens, and 1,000 ink cartridges, in February 1969, for use on its Soyuz space flights. Previously, its cosmonauts had been using grease pencils to write in orbit.

Both American astronauts and Soviet/Russian cosmonauts have continued to use these pens.
Fisher continues to market his space pens as the writing instrument that went to the Moon and has spun off this effort into a separate corporation, the Fisher Space Pen Co

Fisher's: "Universal Refill"

Fisher's: "Universal Refill"

In the 1950's there were dozens of ballpoint models, and nearly every one took a different cartridge. In 1953 Fisher invented the "Universal Refill" which could be used in most pens. It was a good seller, since stationary store owners could reduce their stock of assorted refills.

Not content, Fisher continued to work on making a better refill. After much experimentation he perfected a refill using thixotropic ink which remained semisolid until the shearing action of the rolling ball liquefied it so that it would flow only when needed. The cartridge was pressurized with nitrogen so that it didn't rely on gravity to make it work.

It was dependable in freezing cold and desert heat. It could also write under water and upside down. The trick was to have the ink flow when you wanted it to, and not to flow the rest of the time, a problem Fisher solved. Fisher's development couldn't have come at a more opportune time. The space race was on, and the astronauts involved in the Mercury and Gemini missions had been using pencils to take notes in space since standard ball point pens did not work in zero gravity. The Fisher cartridge did work in the weightlessness of outer space and the astronauts, beginning with the October, 1968 Apollo 7 mission began using the Fisher AG-7 Space Pen and cartridge developed in 1966.

Notable events in the history of Space Pens include:

1969 - Fisher Space Pens used on Apollo 7 after two years of testing by NASA.
1983 - Fisher Space Pen is used by Ronald Regan to sign the proclamation inaugurating the Air and Space Bicentennial Year to celebrate Man's first flight in a hot air balloon near Paris, France.
1985 - Fisher Space Pen Company produces the Stowaway pen line manufactured using genuine gold from the treasure recovered from the 1622 Spanish Galleon - Nuestra Senorna de Atocha.
1996 - Good Morning America names the Fisher Space Pen as a best stocking stuffer. 1996 - Fisher licenced to produce 150th Anniversary Pens for the Smithsonian Institute.
1997 - Space Pens are used during the Everest North Face Ski Expedition.
1998 - The Fisher Space Pen is used on the Russian Space Station Mir to write the letters QVV (QVC Shopping Network) - the first product sold in space.

Seinfeld builds an episode around the Fisher Space Pen where Seinfeld is berated by his parents for accepting the pen as a gift from a neighbour who offers it as a token of friendship.

Ballpoint's: 50,000 polished surfaces

DEVELOPMENT OF THE BALL PEN

The ballpoint pen has come a long way in recent years. From a ballyhooed beginning following World War II, it has now become the most popular mode of handwriting in the United States.
The first patent on a ball pen was issued October 30, 1888, to one John J. Loud. His was an instrument for marking on rough surfaces having a tiny rotating ball held in a socket and fitted with a means for supplying a heavy, sticky ink to the ball.

An ordinary steel ball bearing was used in this first ball pen, but it proved too coarse for letter writing. Improved techniques in grinding and measuring ball bearings for aircraft instruments during World War II eventually led to the modern ball pen.

The ball pen as we know it today, originated in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1944 with Lazlo Biro. Successful production of the Biro pen was due to an accurately ground ball rotating smoothly in a brass seat. The seat was formed by pressing the ball into the previously machined brass socket to form its own impression. The smooth rotating ball enabled ball pens for the first time to write reasonably even lines similar to those of fountain pens.

Biro obtained United States patent rights on his invention and later sold them to Eversharp. An entrepreneur named Milton Reynolds, however, got the jump on Ever- sharp and at Christmastime, 1945, introduced the ball pen to merchandise-hungry Americans. The Reynolds pen proved less than satisfactory in performance, although it was a sales success at $12.50 due to its unique features and claims. It was the pen that was said "to write under water." Every maker of traditional pens jumped onto the bandwagon with the exception of Parker, which felt the release of the product was premature from a technical standpoint.

Eversharp introduced its ballpoint pen in the spring of 1946. It, and models which followed from a number of other manufacturers, did not perform particularly well either. The idea was intriguing -- a pen with reliable ink control which writes for months without needing filling. But, when buyers put the early postwar models to the writing test the item slid in popularity. The drop-off was monumental as the original asking price of $12.50 skidded to less than 50 cents.

The first ball pens sold by Biro were unreliable, it seems, due to the heavy ink used. The ink either flowed too freely or not at all. Competitors developed gravity-flow inks held in rubber sacs, and then in brass tubes, which proved most popular. Forced flow of ink by means of a layer of heavy grease as a "follower" improved performance.

Yet, ball pens were not really successful until new inks, better quality control and more affordable pricing entered the picture in the early '50s. Slowly, but surely, the ball pen came of age. One manufacturer got bankers to endorse his product. People had been fearful of a transferable signature. Then other users of important documents were gradually convinced that this new pen was acceptable for use by customers and for carrying a writer's signature.
Following fastidious research, Parker brought out its first ball pen in 1954, and with it came a relatively individualized writing by ball not previously provided. Parker introduced the efficient Jotter with a variety of point sizes, a rotating cartridge and large-capacity ink refills.

The original Jotter featured the later-patented rotating refill, offering the writer the advantage of even ball wear and no-wobble, smooth writing. The cartridge moved 90 degrees every time the user "clicked" the pen. This rotating feature was to become important to the specialty advertising industry. The advertiser found that he now had available a writing instrument that could present up to four different messages to potential customers through a "window" in the pen with the touch of a button.

In 1954, the Parker Jotter, nine years behind the failed Rocket pen, was ready to challenge market leadership in the U.S. At that time, the leader was PaperMate. In terms of sheer unit volume -- not dollar sales -- it is now believed that Bic is the leader.

A major technical development in ball pen writing was unveiled by Parker in 1957, with the introduction of a textured tungsten carbide ball, incorporated in the Jotter. With this improvement, Parker gradually made headway with its T-Ball Jotter and, by 1961, it became the best selling ball pen around the world in the quality (over $1.00) price category.

The textured ball, still in use in Parker ball pens and refills because of its technical superiority, is a technologically perfect sphere that literally grips writing surfaces, including those that are rough, greasy or slick. Advances in the technology of sintering -- the controlled bonding of metal particles by heat transfer -- allowed Parker to produce a sintered sphere that holds more ink inside than on the surface. It is one millimeter in diameter, approximately the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

A T-Ball surface is actually composed of some 50,000 polished surfaces and pits, with pits joined by even smaller channels. The channels and pits are continuous throughout the interior of the sphere, approximating the interior structure of a sugar cube. Most of the major ball pen brands now employ a textured ball. General Electric Company is a major supplier.

Another advance in Parker ball pen technology came in 1963 with the introduction of the stainless steel ball socket -- outlasting significantly the then-used soft bronze socket and better matching the durability uf the T-Ball surface. The stain- less steel socket helped the Parker ball pen produce a better writing line because of greater strength and its resistance to corrosion.

Other technical improvements in the Jotter came later with improvement in paste inks, offering greater resistance to weather and extremes of air pressure. This resulted because of Parker's worldwide experience as a pen maker. Because the Jotter is sold in every market of the free world, it must be built to perform in the heat of the Sahara, the altitudes of the Andes and the bitter cold of Alaska.

The Jotter today remains one of Parker's best selling writing instruments. Nearly 17 million Jotter pens are sold throughout the world each year. They are offered with a stainless steel cap, with barrels in more than 30 colors.

Jotter refills are available in five different point sizes and a choice of four writing ink colors. And, because of Parker's confidence in the quality and reliability of the T-Ball, these refills are used in every Parker ball pen from the popular-priced Jotter and Big Red to the solid-gold Presidential model.

Recent tests show that a Parker ball pen refill in black will produce more than 28,000 linear feet of writing -- more than five miles -- before running out of ink. This is 7,000 feet more writing service than the nearest competitor.

Tungsten carbide textured ball bearing

A ballpoint pen works using gravity, directing ink towards the paper when held nib down. A small ball at the pointed end of the reservoir rolls viscous ink onto paper. As the pen moves across the paper, the ball is able to rotate and the ink dries immediately. The ball, made from brass, steel or tungsten carbide, is held tightly in position by a socket, and acts as a buffer between the paper and ink. The ball seals the ink from the air, preventing it from drying out in the reservoir.

The size of a ballpoint pen's line is determined by the width of the ballpoint. A 0.5mm pen has a ball that will produce a line that is 0.5mm wide. Ultra-fine ballpoints produce lines that measure 0.1mm in width.

Development of the Ballpoint Pen
The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issued on 30 October, 1888, to John J Loud. The pen had a rotating small steel ball bearing. As with modern ballpoint pens, the ball was held in place by a socket. It was fitted with a means for supplying heavy, sticky ink to the ball. The pen proved to be too coarse for letter writing, but it could be used to mark rough surfaces, especially leather.

However, the patent was commercially unexploited and another ballpoint pen device was patented by Van Vechten Riesburg in 1916. The patent lapsed without improvement renewal.
Commercial models appeared in 1895, but the first satisfactory model of a ballpoint pen was designed by two Hungarian brothers living in Argentina: Lazlo, a journalist, and George Biro, a chemist. Lazlo noticed that the type of ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge-free. He decided to create a pen using quick-drying ink instead of India ink. The thicker ink, though, would not flow from an ordinary pen nib and Biro had to devise a new type of point. Lazlo put a tiny metal ball bearing in the tip of a pen, the success of the ballpoint pen is due to the accuracy in which the ball is ground.

The ball bearing is housed in a socket, placed at the end of a tube of ink. As the pen moves along the paper, the ball rotates smoothly in a metal seat. The seat was formed by pressing the ball into the previously machined metal socket to form its own impression. It picks up ink from the ink cartridge and rolls the ink onto the surface of the paper. The ball is constantly bathed in ink from a reservoir. One end of the reservoir is open, while the other end is attached to the writing tip. Thus, the ball has two functions - to act as a cap to keep the ink from drying and to let ink flow out of the pen at a controlled rate.

The pen could write reasonably even lines, similar to those produced by fountain pens. Early versions of the ballpoint pen were expensive, as the nib was attached to the body of the pen. As the nib was easily damaged, the whole pen had to be replaced if it was broken.
Biro Lazlo Biro applied for patents in 1938 and 1940 with the European Patent Office. In 1938, the newly formed Eterpen Company manufactured the Biro pen. Lazlo eventually sold the patents to Eversharp.

The ballpoint pen, commonly called the 'biro' became popular in Great Britain during the late 1930s. As Biro had neglected to obtain a North American patent for the pen, he missed the lucrative opportunity of manufacturing the pen in the US. In addition, this enabled the British government to purchase the licensing rights.

In 1939, the Royal Air Force needed a new type of pen because the conventional fountain pen leaked when fighter planes flew at high altitudes with reduced pressure. During World War II, the ballpoint pen was widely used by the military forces because of its toughness and ability to survive the battle environment. By the mid-1940s, pens of this type were widely used throughout much of the world. The press hailed the success of the biro because you could write for a year with it without refilling.

In the United States, the first successful, commercially produced ballpoint pen to replace the fountain pen was introduced by Milton Reynolds in 1945. It used a tiny ball that rolled heavy, gelatine-consistency ink onto the paper. The Reynolds Pen was marketed as 'the first pen to write underwater' guaranteed to write for two years without refilling and was claimed to be smear proof. The pen retailed at $12.50, which was considered expensive. However, on its first day of sale, in a New York department store, $100,000 worth of ballpoint pens were sold, primarily due to the introduction of this new technology.

Every large fountain pen manufacturing company became involved with the development of the ballpoint pen. Eversharp introduced the capillary action ballpoint pen, based on the original Biro patents, in the Spring of 1946. Although the company intended to be the first on the market in the US with a ballpoint pen, they were in fact the second. Legal battles with competitors slowly drained the company's resources. Few notable Eversharp models appeared in the 1950s. Parker acquired the writing instrument division of Eversharp Inc in 1957, in an attempt to penetrate the lower-price ballpoint pen market.

Parker Pens believed the release of the product was premature from a technical standpoint. They were proved correct, as these early pens were primitive writing instruments. Many models leaked, did not write evenly and often didn't write at all. Very high numbers of ballpoints were returned. By 1948, the price of the Biro dropped to less than 50 cents per pen.
However, in 1945, Baron Marcel Bich, a Frenchman, realised the potential of the pen. Bich tested the Biro and concluded that the pen was unreliable because of the heavy ink that was used. The ink flowed either too freely or not at all. Bich developed gravity-flow inks held in rubber sacks, and then in brass tubes, which proved most popular. Using a layer of heavy grease to force the flow of ink resulted in improved performance.
BiC

Bich founded the BiC Company, with the aim of manufacturing inexpensive ballpoint pens. Adopting rigorous standards of quality control, Bich developed the industrial process for making the pens that lowered the unit cost dramatically. In 1949, Bich introduced his pens in Europe. He called the pens 'BiC' a shortened, easy-to-remember version of his name.
In 1955, BiC introduced its pens to the American market. Initially, consumers were reluctant to buy the pens, as so many unreliable pens had been introduced to the US market by other manufacturers. To increase sales, BiC created a televised advertising campaign, with the slogan, 'Writes First Time, Every Time!' The pen retailed for only 29 cents. Within a year, competition forced prices down to less than 10 cents each.

By the early 1960s, BiC dominated the ballpoint pen market. Parker, Schaeffer and Waterman captured the smaller upscale markets of fountain pens and expensive ballpoints. Currently, the highly popular modern version of Lazlo Biro's pen, the BiC Crystal, has a daily world wide sales figure of 14,000,000 pens. Biro is still the generic name used for the ballpoint pen in most of the world.

The Cheap Disposable vs the Luxury Writing Implement
Following tremendous research in 1954, Parker Pen introduced their first ballpoint pen. Known as the 'Jotter' it was fitted with a rotating cartridge refill, that could offer users the advantage of even ball wear, which resulted in smooth writing. The cartridge moved 90° every time the user 'clicked' the pen. Using this rotating feature, up to four different styles of writing could be produced. This feature wasn't available in other ballpoint pens, including the market leader, PaperMate. The Jotter was able to write efficiently and could write five times longer than other models of ballpoints. It was available in a variety of point sizes, with a rotating cartridge and had large-capacity ink refills. As users found it wrote reliably and consistently, sales increased to 3.5 million in its first year. It retailed between $2.95 and $8.75.

In 1957, a major technical development in ball pen writing was developed by Parker, with the introduction of a textured tungsten carbide ball, which replaced the solid ball bearing. Known as the T-ball, the textured ball is a technologically perfect sphere that literally grips writing surfaces, including those that are rough, greasy or slick. The surface of the T-Ball surface is actually composed of some 50,000 polished surfaces and pits, with pits joined by even smaller channels. The channels and pits are continuous throughout the interior of the sphere, approximating the interior structure of a sugar cube. The T-ball was incorporated into the Jotter Pen.

Advances in the technology of 'sintering', the controlled bonding of metal particles by heat transfer, allowed Parker to produce a sintered sphere that holds more ink inside than on the surface. It measures one millimetre in diameter. With these improvements, Parker introduced the T-Ball Jotter and by 1961, it became the best selling ballpoint pen around the world in the quality price category (ie, over $1.00).

A further advance in Parker ball pen technology was in 1963, with the introduction of the stainless steel ball socket. This type of socket is stronger, is more resistant to corrosion and has a significantly longer life span than the soft bronze socket. About durability, it is better suited to the surface of the T-Ball. This development produced a better writing line.

In 1970, the futuristically styled Parker 'T-l' was manufactured with Titanium components. However, the choice of material caused many technical problems and the product was withdrawn after a few years.

The Jotter remains one of Parker's best selling writing instruments, with annual sales of nearly 17 million. Improvements in paste inks offer greater resistance to weather and extremes of air pressure. Thus, Parker Pens can perform in the heat of the Sahara Desert, in high altitudes of the Andes and the freezing temperatures experienced in Alaska. The Jotter is currently available with a stainless steel cap, and the barrel in available in a choice of 30 colours. Jotter refills are available in five different point sizes with a choice of four writing ink colours.

Parker maintains that the quality and reliability of the T-ball cannot be improved. It is used in every Parker ball pen that is manufactured, from the current Jotter model to the solid-gold
Presidential model. Parker black ballpoint pens produce more than 28,000 linear feet of writing, more than five miles, before running out of ink. This offers 7,000 feet more writing service than the competition.

BallPoint Pen: Developments

The Hungarian Laszlo Biro, a magazine publisher, noticed, during a visit to a printer's, how quickly the printer's ink dried. It occurred to him that this fast-drying ink would work well in a fountain pen. This dense ink, however, would not flow through a pen. Therefore, Biro decided to replace the metal writing nib of his pen with a slim ball bearing. As the pen moved across the paper, the ball turned and suctioned ink from the reservoir, which then transferred it to the paper.

This principle of the ballpoint pen was not, however, a new one. It had been patented in the year 1888 by John J. Loud, but had not been used commercially. Biro first patented his pen in the year 1938. In 1940 he and his brother ran away from Hungary to Argentina. There, on the 10 June 1943, he patented his pen again. A clerk of the British government, Henry Martin, who was, by chance, at that time in Argentina, was interested in the fact that Biro's pen wrote at any altitude above sea level, and therefore because it was not affected by air pressure or other atmospheric conditions. It immediately occurred to him to make it available to navigators in airplanes. The British government bought the patent and in 1944 a pen under the brand name Biro was produced for the Royal Air Force. In Argentina the pen was used commercially by the Eterpen Company. In May of 1945 the Eversharp Company obtained an exclusive right to the Biro pen and brought it to market under the brand name Eversharp CA.

A month later the Chicago businessman Milton Reynolds saw this pen at a department store in Buenos Aires. He bought a few samples, returned to the States, and founded the International Pen Company. Four months later, ignoring the patent rights of the Eversharp Company, he sold his pen under the name Reynolds' Rocket in New York. He was immediately successful: on the first day he sold $100,000 worth. In Britain the pen appeared in that year for the Christmas market from Miles-Martin Pen Company.

During the next four years, the ballpoint practically drove the classic fountain pen out of the market. But then, sales and price quickly fell: people tired of the novelty and began to assess it more realistically. The ballpoint pen from Reynolds leaked, skipped and was unreliable and the pen manufactured by Eversharp also did not fulfill the promise of its advertising. In 1948, the price dropped from $12.50 to less than 50 cents. The fountain pen again became the only one. Reynolds's firm failed in 1951. Eversharp experienced financial difficulties, tried to return to manufacturing fountain pens and in the 60s finally collapsed..

The battle was won. In January of 1954 Parker Pens introduced its first ballpoint, the Jotter. It wrote reliably and five times longer. In less than a year, Parker sold 3.5 million pens (for an average of $6.00 per pen). In the year 1957, Eversharp's fall continued. Its production of fountain pens profited no one other than Parker. Since that year it has supplied its ballpoints from tungsten carbide (of which it is still made today.).

But, everything in its time. In 1950 Marcel Bich began to sell his French pen and in 1953 he founded the BiC company (using an abbreviation of his name). In subsequent years its subsidiaries, BIC Italy, BIC LAFREST Spain, BIC Brazil and CIRO Swan Ltd England, were founded. By the end of the 50s it controlled 70% of the European market and in 1960 it became the owner of the Waterman Pen Company in New York and it sold its pens on the North American markets for 29 to 69 cents. The battle was won again. BiC completely controlled the market. Parker and other companies had to rest satisfied with a small market for fountain pens and more expensive models of ballpoints.

Today the modern version of Biro's pen, under the brand name BiC Cristal, sells 20 million pens throughout the world every day.

Two-color BiC Italy.The four-color model looks similar.

But the history of ballpoints does not end with these exceptional successes. During it's development the ceramic pen, the "roller", developed as well. This filled the gap between the classic fountain pen and the ballpoint and had advantageous characteristics of each: light writing like the fountain pen and simple control during writing. The metal ball was replaced by a ceramic on (which is harder than carbide and is corrosion resistant) and an ink cartridge.

There are also manufacturers, who combine ballpoints with other writing instruments (pencils, styluses, designer pens). Ballpoints combined with lighted diodes have appeared; with these one can write sentences and shine for up to 300 hours. Of course, the future will tell, what is just fashion and advertising copy and what is a true contribution..

BALLPOINT PEN: The first great success

BALLPOINT PEN

The first great success for the ballpoint pen came on an October morning in 1945 when a crowd of over 5,000 people jammed the entrance of New York’s Gimbels Department Store. The day before, Gimbels had taken out a full-page ad in the New York Times promoting the first sale of ballpoints in the United States. The ad described the new pen as a "fantastic... miraculous fountain pen ... guaranteed to write for two years without refilling!" On that first day of sales, Gimbels sold out its entire stock of 10,000 pens-at $12.50 each!

Actually, this "new" pen wasn't new at all and didn't work much better than ballpoint pens that had been produced ten years earlier. The story begins in 1888 when John Loud, an American leather tanner, patented a roller-ball-tip marking pen. Loud’s invention featured a reservoir of ink and a roller ball that applied the thick ink to leather hides. John Loud’s pen was never produced, nor were any of the other 350 patents for ball-type pens issued over the next thirty years. The major problem was the ink - if the ink was thin the pens leaked, and if it was too thick, they clogged. Depending on the temperature, the pen would sometimes do both.

The next stage of development came almost fifty years after Loud’s patent, with an improved version invented in Hungary in 1935 by Ladislas Biro and his brother, Georg. Ladislas Biro was very talented and confident of his abilities, but he had never had a pursuit that kept his interest and earned him a good living. He had studied medicine, art, and hypnotism, and in 1935 he was editing a small newspaper-where he was frustrated by the amount of time he wasted filling fountain pens and cleaning up ink smudges. Besides that, the sharp tip of his fountain pen often scratched or tore through the newsprint (paper). Determined to develop a better pen, Ladislas and Georg (who was a chemist) set about making models of new designs and formulating better inks to use in them.

One summer day while vacationing at the seashore, the Biro brothers met an interesting elderly gentleman, Augustine Justo, who happened to be the president of Argentina. After the brothers showed him their model of a ballpoint pen, President Justo urged them to set up a factory in Argentina. When World War II broke out in Europe, a few years later, the Biros fled to Argentina, stopping in Paris along the way to patent their pen.

Once in Argentina, the Biros found several investors willing to finance their invention, and in 1943 they had set up a manufacturing plant. Unfortunately, the pens were a spectacular failure. The Biro pen, like the designs that had preceded it, depended on gravity for the ink to flow to the roller ball. This meant that the pens worked only when they were held more or less straight up, and even then the ink flow was sometimes too heavy, leaving smudgy globs on the paper. The Biro brothers returned to their laboratory and devised a new design, which relied on "capillsry action" rather than gravity to feed the ink. The rough "ball" at the end of the pen acted like a metal sponge, and with this improvement ink could flow more smoothly to the ball, and the pen could be held at a slant rather than straight up. One year later, the Biros were selling their new, improved ballpoint pen throughout Argentina. But it still was not a smashing success, and the men ran out of money.

The greatest interest in the ballpoint pen came from American flyers who had been to Argentina during World War II. Apparently it was ideal for pilots because it would work well at high altitudes and, unlike fountain pens, did not have to be refilled frequently. The U.S. Department of State sent specifications to several American pen manufacturers asking them to develop a similar pen. In an attempt to corner the market, the Eberhard Faber Company paid the Biro brothers $500,000 for the rights to manufacture their ballpoint pen in the United States. Eberhard Faber later sold its rights to the Eversharp Company, but neither was quick about putting a ballpoint pen on the market. There were still too many bugs in the Biro design.

Meanwhile, in a surprise move, a fifty-four-year-old Chicago salesman named Milton Reynolds became the first American manufacturer to market a ballpoint pen successfully. While vacationing in Argentina, Reynolds had seen Biro’s pen in the stores and thought that the novel product would sell well in America. Because many of the patents had expired, Reynolds thought he could avoid any legal problems, and so he went about copying much of the Biros’ design. It was Reynolds who made the deal with Gimbels to be the first retail store in America to sell ballpoint pens. He set up a makeshift factory with 300 workers who began stamping out pens from whatever aluminum was not being used for the war. In the months that followed, Reynolds made millions of pens and became fairly wealthy, as did many other manufacturers who decided to cash in on the new interest.

The competition among pen manufacturers during the mid-1940s became quite hectic, with each one claiming new and better features. Reynolds even claimed that his ballpoint could write under water, and he hired Esther Williams, the swimmer and movie star, to help prove it. Another manufacturer claimed that its pen would write through ten carbon copies, while still another demonstrated that its pen would write up-side down. However, the effect of the slogans and advertising wore off as soon as the owners discovered the many problems that still existed with the ballpoint pens. As the sale of the pens began to drop, so did the price, and the once expensive luxury now would not even sell for as little as 19 cents. Once again, it looked as if the ballpoint pen would be a complete failure. For the pen to regain the public’s favor and trust, somebody would have to invent one that was smooth writing, quick drying, nonskipping, nonfading, and most important didn’t leak.

Two men, each with his own pen company, delivered these results. The first was Patrick J. Frawley Jr. Frawley met Fran Seech, an unemployed Los Angeles chemist who had lost his job when the ballpoint pen company he was working for had gone out of business. Seech had been working on improvements in ballpoint ink, and on his own he continued his experiments in a tiny cubbyhole home laboratory. Frawley was so impressed with his work that he bought Seech’s new ink formula in 1949 and started the Frawley Pen Company. Within one year, Frawley was in the ballpoint pen business with yet another improved model-the first pen with a retractable ballpoint tip and the first with no-smear ink. To overcome many of the old prejudices against the leaky and smeary ballpoint pen of the past, Frawley initiated an imaginative and risky advertising campaign, a promotion he called Project Normandy. Frawley instructed his salesmen to barge into the offices of retail store buyers and scribble all over the executives’ shirts with one of the new pens. Then the salesman would offer to replace the shirt with an even more expensive one if the ink did not wash out entirely. The shirts did come clean and the promotion worked. As more and more retailers accepted the pen, which Frawley named the "Papermate," sales began to skyrocket. Within a few years, the Papermate pen was selling in the hundreds of millions.

The other man to bring the ballpoint pen successfully back to life was Marcel Bich, a French manufacturer of penholders and pen cases. Bich was appalled at the poor quality of the ballpoint pens he had seen and he was also shocked at their high cost. But he recognized that the ballpoint was a firmly established innovation and he resolved to design a high-quality pen at a low price that would scoop the market. He went to the Biro brothers and arranged to pay them a royalty on their patent. Then for two years Marcel Bich studied the detailed construction of every ballpoint pen on the market, often working with a microscope. By 1952 Bich was ready to introduce his new wonder: a clear-barreled, smooth-writing, non-leaky, inexpensive ballpoint pen he called the "Ballpoint Bic." The ballpoint pen had finally become a practical writing instrument. The public accepted it without complaint, and today it is as standard a writing implement as the pencil. In England, they are still called Biros, and many Bic models also say "Biro" on the side of the pen, as a testament to their primary inventors.

Mightier than the Pencil

Nattily dressed, a junior accountant named Robert Philip Adler reported to his new job at the ailing Waterman Pen Co. one August day in 1955. He was no sooner in the office than he found him self in hip boots, helping to shovel up the muddy debris of a flood that had immersed the plant. Adler, now 33, has since cleaned up at pen making in an even bigger way. As president of the renamed and revivified Waterman-Bic Pen Corp., he has expanded the Milford, Conn., firm into the nation's leading manufacturer of ballpoint pens, with 20% of the industry's estimated $120 million-a-year sales and 40% of its 1.2 billion-pens-a-year output.

Last week Adler spread out with a new subsidiary, Bic Pen of Canada, Ltd., which has built a $400,000 plant in Toronto. His aim: to win nearly half of the 200-million-ballpoint-pen Canadian market within three years. Brash though that seems, it only matches the hustle by which Adler last year sold U.S. buyers 480 million ballpoint pens, almost all of them use-and-discard models priced from 19¢ to 49¢ retail. Adler keeps a quarter of his 300 plant employees busy checking the quality of parts coming off automated production lines, personally scrutinizes the daily writing-test samples before each shipment leaves the temperature, dust-and humidity-controlled plant. "People are going to remember you if you're good," says Adler, "but they'll remember you better if you're bad."

New Haven-born Adler joined Waterman soon after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance, moved up quickly, became company controller at 24, treasurer at 26. He caught the eye of Chairman Marcel Bich, Europe's foremost ballpoint-pen maker, when Bich bought Waterman in 1958. "I told him, 'You've cut expenses as much as you can,' " says Adler. " 'What you need is sales.' " Bich immediately made Adler executive vice president, and after sales pushed the company into the black, Adler became president at 31. Today Waterman-Bic is the biggest link in the French manufacturer's worldwide network of 18 plants producing 3,000,000 pens a day for 96 countries.

Though Waterman's founder, L. E. Waterman, developed the first practical fountain pen in 1884, the company no longer makes them. U.S. ballpoint-pen sales, however, today nearly match those of lead pencils. By 1970, Adler insists, the ballpoint pen will be mightier than the pencil.

First manufactor of the BallPoint Pen

László Bíró (1899-1985)
The manufactor of the Ballpoint Pen

Everybody is familiar with the ballpoint pen and all over the world this eminently useful invention has become an indispensable part of our everyday lives. But how many of us know the story behind this convenient writing implement or the name of its inventor?

The story begins in the 1880s. At that time several inventors tried to develop a ballpoint pen but it was the Hungarian, László Bíró, who created the pen with which we are familiar today László Bíró was born in Budapest on September 19th, 1899. He gained a place at the Medical School in Budapest but did not graduate. For a time he dabbled with hypnosis then he got a job with an oil company as a clerk responsible for matters relating to customs duties. He also had a go at motor racing, which provided the stimulus for his next invention - a new type of gear lever.

He was also a successful painter.The need to invent something like the ballpoint pen arose when he took up journalism. He was the editor of the journal "Hongrie-Magyarország-Hungary" and when this was closed down he began working for the newspaper " Elôtte". As a journalist he was frequently irritated by the difficulties involved in using a fountain pen and began to think about how he could replace it with a more convenient writing implement.

Eventually he realised that the technique used in printing by which a rotary cylinder ensures continuous and uniform application of the ink could be adapted for use in a pen in such a way that a slender tube filled with ink with a small ball bearing at the end would be able to apply the ink continuously to the paper. It took several years of experimentation, however before the original idea could be realised in the form of the ballpoint pen, which rapidly became popular all over the world. Part of this experimentation was carried out abroad because in 1939 fears for his own and his family’s safety prompted him to flee from Hungary, firstly to Paris and then to Argentina.

Like all inventions the ballpoint pen had its precursors and required the input of numerous experts and considerable financial backing. For the ballpoint pen to work well it requires precision-made ball bearings, which finally a Swedish company was able to produce to the standard required by László Bíró. Another problem was to produce ink of suitable viscosity. Initially Bíró’s brother, György, helped to resolve this problem, but later the experimentation was continued in the workshops of the firm of Goy and Kovalszky.

Andor Goy played an important role in the development of a ballpoint pen that could be mass produced. His name is associated with the "Gopen". In 1940, in Argentina, László Bíró began experimenting independently until he finally patented his ballpoint pen there in 1943. The first ballpoint pens sold in large numbers to the public were manufactured in 1945 and were marketed in Argentina under the name of "Eterpen".

Bíró invented other things but his name will be for ever associated with the ballpoint pen, in fact in Britain a ballpoint pen is usually referred to as a "Bíró".László Bíró was so highly respected in Argentina that the Argentine Inventors’ Day is celebrated on his birthday September 29th.László Bíró died on November 24th 1985 in Buenos Aires.

A Brief History of Writing Instruments

By Mary Bellis

'No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had" - Samuel Johnson.

A Hungarian journalist named Laszlo Biro invented the first ballpoint pen in 1938. Biro had noticed that the type of ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge-free. He decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. The thicker ink would not flow from a regular pen nib and Biro had to devise a new type of point. He did so by fitting his pen with a tiny ball bearing in its tip. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper.

This principle of the ballpoint pen actually dates back to an 1888 patent owned by John J. Loud for a product to mark leather. However, this patent was commercially unexploited. Laszlo Biro first patented his pen in 1938, and applied for a fresh patent in Argentina on June 10, 1943. (Laszlo Biro and his brother Georg Biro emigrated to Argentina in 1940.)

The British Government bought the licensing rights to this patent for the war effort. The British Royal Air Force needed a new type of pen, one that would not leak at higher altitudes in fighter planes as the fountain pen did. Their successful performance for the Air Force brought the Biro pens into the limelight. Laszlo Biro had neglected to get a U.S. patent for his pen and so even with the ending of World War II, another battle was just beginning..

Historical Outline - The Battle of Ballpoint Pens
The first pen-writing instrument was the quill pen dipped into dark paint. There became a need to lengthen the time between dips, eliminate splatter, eliminate smearing and improve pen handling.

Early 1800s: The first designs for pens that could hold their own ink patented.
1884: L.E. Waterman, a New York City insurance salesman, designed the first workable fountain pen, the fountain pen becomes the predominant writing instrument for the next sixty years. Four fountain pen manufactures dominate the market: Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman and Wahl-Eversharp.

1938: Invention of a ballpoint pen by two Hungarian inventors, Laszlo Biro and George Biro. The brothers both worked on the pen and applied for patents in 1938 and 1940. The new-formed Eterpen Company in Argentina commercialized the Biro pen. The press hailed the success of this writing tool because it could write for a year without refilling.

May 1945: Eversharp Co. teams up with Eberhard-Faber to acquire the exclusive rights to Biro Pens of Argentina. The pen re-branded the “Eversharp CA” which stood for Capillary Action. Released to the press months in advance of public sales.

June, 1945: Less than a month after Eversharp/Eberhard close the deal with Eterpen, Chicago businessman, Milton Reynolds visits Buenos Aires. While in a store, he sees the Biro pen and recognizes the pen’s sales potential. He buys a few pens as samples. Reynolds returns to America and starts the Reynolds International Pen Company, ignoring Eversharp’s patent rights.

October 29, 1945: Reynolds copies the product in four months and sells his product Reynold's Rocket at Gimbel’s department store in New York City. Reynolds’ imitation beats Eversharp to market. Reynolds’ pen is immediately successful: Priced at $12.50, $100,000 worth sold the first day on the market.

December, 1945: Britain was not far behind with the first ballpoint pens available to the public sold at Christmas by the Miles-Martin Pen Company. The Ballpoint Pen Becomes a Fad
Ballpoint pens guaranteed to write for two years without refilling, claimed to be smear proof. Reynolds advertised it as the pen "to write under water." Eversharp sued Reynolds for copying the design it had acquired legally.

The previous 1888 patent by John Loud would have invalidated everyone's claims. However, no one knew that at the time. Sales skyrocketed for both competitors. Nevertheless, the Reynolds’ pen leaked, skipped and often failed to write. Eversharp’s pen did not live up to its own advertisements. A very high volume of pen returns occurred for both Eversharp and Reynolds. The ballpoint pen fad ended - due to consumer unhappiness.

1948: Frequent price wars, poor quality products, and heavy advertising costs hurt each side. Sales did a nosedive. The original asking price of $12.50 dropped to less than 50 cents per pen.

1950: The French Baron called Bich, drops the h and starts BIC and starts selling pens.

1951: The ballpoint pen dies a consumer death. Fountain pens are number one again. Reynolds folds.

January, 1954: Parker Pens introduces its first ballpoint pen, the Jotter. The Jotter wrote five times longer than the Eversharp or Reynolds pens. It had a variety of point sizes, a rotating cartridge and large-capacity ink refills. Best of all, it worked. Parker sold 3.5 million Jotters @ $2.95 to $8.75 in less then one year.

The Ballpoint Pen Battle is Won

1957: Parker introduces the tungsten carbide textured ball bearing in their ballpoint pens. Eversharp was in deep financial trouble and tried to switch back to selling fountain pens. Eversharp sold its pen division to Parker Pens and Eversharp's assets finally liquidated in the 1960’s.

Late 1950's: BIC ® held 70 percent of European market.
1958: BIC buys 60 percent of the New York based Waterman Pens.
1960: BIC owns 100 percent of Waterman Pens. BIC sells ballpoint pens in U.S. for 29 - 69 cents. The Ballpoint Pen War is Won
BIC ® dominates the market. Parker, Sheaffer and Waterman, capture the smaller upscale markets of fountain pens and expensive ballpoints.

Today: The highly popular modern version of Laszlo Biro's pen, the BIC Crystal, has a daily world wide sales figure of 14,000,000 pieces. Biro is still the generic name used for the ballpoint pen in most of the world. The Biro pens used by the British Air Force in W.W.II worked. Parker black ballpoint pens will produce more than 28,000 linear feet of writing -- more than five miles, before running out of ink.

The history of the ballpoint pen

The history of the ballpoint pen
Article added on October 17+18, 2002

The history of the ball-point pen

In 1879 in Providence, Rhode Island, Alonzo T. Cross invented the stylographic fountain pen, a precursor of the ball-point pen. He engaged in competition with Duncan Mackinnon, the other stylographic pen inventor.

In 1880 A. T. Cross separated his business from his father's and renamed his company the A. T. Cross - Pen and Pencil Manufacturer. The fountain pen by Lewis Edson Waterman in 1884 was another step forward in the development of writing instruments. The problems of ink, e.g. drying out, remained. They could be overcome by a ballpoint pen.

The first to think of it was the German inventor Baum who patented a ball-point pen (Kugelschreiber) in 1910. However, the first man to actually develop and launch a ball-point pen was the Hungarian László Jozsef Bíró (1899-1985) from Budapest, who in 1938 invented a ball-point pen with a pressurized ink cartridge. He is considered the inventor of today's ball-point pen.

Working as a journalist, Biro noticed that the ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge-free. From there he got the idea to use the same type of ink for writing instruments. Since the thicker ink would not flow from a regular pen nib, he fitted his pen with a tiny ball bearing in its tip. Moving along the paper, the ball rotates picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper. This principle of the ballpoint pen dates back to a never commercially exploited patent of 1888 owned by John J. Loud for a product to mark leather.

At the very end of 1938, just one day before anti-Jewish laws became active in Hungary, Bíró fled to Paris before emigrating to Argentina. Agustin P. Justo had suggested to him to travel to Argentina. He gave him his signed card which should allow Bíró to obtain a hard to get visa for the South American country; only in the consulate Bíró found out Justo was no one else than the Argentine President.

In 1943 Bíró obtained a new patent in Argentina and became the country's leading producer of ball-point pens. The British government bought the patent as the pen's functioning was not affected by high altitude air pressure and would thus be of use to navigators in airplanes. In 1944, a pen under the brand name Biro was produced for the Royal Air Force. Bíró died in Argentina in 1985.

In 1945 Eversharp Co. and Eberhard-Faber acquired the exclusive rights to Biro Pens of Argentina. Their pen company was re-branded the "Eversharp CA" with CA standing for Capillary Action. Shortly afterwards in 1945, the Chicago businessman Milton Reynolds brought some of Biro's pens from Argentina to the US. With the help of William H. Huenergardt, he created the Reynolds Ball Point Pen which was put on the US market at the end of 1945 - ignoring the patent acqurired by Eversharp. It became an instant success. However, like Biro's and Eversharp's pens, they were not perfect and often leaked and/or smeared.By 1951, the fountain pen regained its leading position with consumers. The ballpoint pen seemed to have lost the battle.

However, in 1954, Parker Pens introduced its first ballpoint pen called The Jotter which became a success. The same can be said of Patrick J. Frawley Jr. who, in 1949, bought from the Los Angeles chemist Fran Seech an improved ink formula. Seech had lost his job when the ballpoint pen company he was working for had gone out of business. He continued to improve the ink formula he had been working for. Frawley used it when he launched his Frawley Pen Company in 1949. Within one year, he put an improved ballpoint pen on the market, the first pen with a retractable ballpoint tip with no-smear ink. Frawley named his pen the "Papermate". It became a huge success, selling hundreds of millions of copies within a few years.

However, within the ballpoint pen battle, the French Baron Marcel Bich, who had founded the BIC company in 1950, began to dominate the market in Europe and the US in the late 1950s and, by 1960, owned 100% of the Waterman pen company.

The Fisher Space Pen In September 1945, Julian Levy, Milton Reynolds' son-in-law, had asked Paul C. Fisher to help improve their pen not yet launched. After two days of testing, Fisher declined the offer because he came to the conclusion that "the basic principle is not sound". Despite this evaluation by Fisher, Reynolds had made some five million dollars after taxes by January 1946.

In October 1948, Paul C. Fisher founded his own firm, the Fisher Space Pen Company. In the 1950's, there were dozens of ballpoint models using nearly as many different cartridges. Therefore, in 1953 Fisher invented the "Universal Refill" which could be used in most pens. It was a good seller since store owners could reduce their stock of assorted refills.

Fisher continued to improve his refill and, in 1966, came up with a perfect solution using thixotropic ink: It remains semisolid until the shearing action of the rolling ball liquefies it. The ink flows only when needed. The cartridge is pressurized with nitrogen so that it does not rely on gravity to make it work. It writes in freezing cold, desert heat, underwater and upside down (1965: patent # 3,285,228 - the original AG7 Anti-Gravity Pen developed by Paul Fisher).

Extra-fine ballpoint pen tip

first ballpoint pen: Mr. John J. Loud

On October 30, 1888, Mr. John J. Loud of Weymouth, Massachusetts, received a patent for the first ballpoint pen.

Before the 1800s, pens and ink were always separate: pens were just writing instruments dipped into ink. Many pens made of quills or reeds could hold enough ink to write for a few minutes, but more ink would have to be kept nearby to refill the pen. However, by the late 1800s, "fountain pens" were starting to catch on -- pens with an internal reservoir capable of holding plenty of ink, so the user could travel from place to place without carrying bottled ink for his pen.

We know very little about Mr. Loud, except that he may have been a leather tanner or a shoemaker. He invented a fountain pen that had a small metal ball at the tip to regulate how the ink came out. Such a pen would be excellent for writing on leather and fabric, as he suggested in his patent application, calling it useful "for marking on rough surfaces -- such as wood, coarse wrapping paper, and other articles -- where an ordinary [fountain] pen could not be used."

Mr. Loud made very few of his pens and the patent was allowed to expire. But the idea long outlived the patent, and almost exactly 57 years later (on October 29, 1945) the first mass-produced ballpoint pens went on sale in New York City. Today, of course, ballpoint pens are so common that most people never use any other kind.

Conservation/ Art on Paper

Conservation of Works of Art on Paper: Prints, Drawings and Watercolours
By Catherine Rickman and Stephen Ball

Paper is still the material on which the majority of artists' images are produced. Works of art on paper appear in almost every public collection and cover a vast range of subject matter.
Paper was probably invented in China some time during the second century AD, but it was not until the twelfth century that papermaking reached Europe when the Moors introduced the process into Spain. By the middle of the fifteenth century the invention of printing had fuelled a huge new demand, and paper was in common use as a picture support across the whole of Europe.

Materials
The raw material of paper, whether it carries old master drawings or present-day prints, is cellulose obtained from vegetable fibres. The fibres are combined into a mat and bound with adhesive additives, and may be further treated to provide other desirable qualities such as whiteness. The strongest and most durable papers come from the long fibres of linen, cotton or hemp, often obtained from rags. However, although pure cellulose is extremely durable, the various additives can cause deterioration, usually through acid degradation of the fibres.

Rag-made papers long ago ceased to be used for everyday printing, which is now dominated by papers based on wood pulp, but they remain favourite supports for watercolours and other artworks. Wood-based papers vary widely in quality, from the wholly 'mechanical' varieties suitable for ephemeral applications to the chemically treated 'wood free' varieties designed for longer life. ('Wood free' wood-based paper may sound like a contradiction in terms, but is simply a paper free of untreated mechanical wood.) Some present-day papers may even have plastics added to the mix.

Paper is not chemically inert, is easily soiled or stained, and swells and contracts with the humidity of the environment. Wood-pulp produces more reactive, and thus shorter-lived, papers than rag, with the reactivity increasing with the mechanical wood content. However, the care and conservation requirements are similar for all types of paper.

There is no guarantee that a watercolour, print or other work has been rendered on the best available support. Knowledgeable artists may have chosen wisely, but it is likely that some works - important sketches in notebooks, for example, or prints from some periods - were not created with posterity in mind and may suffer from poor paper. Remember too that other paper materials, especially card or board, may be in contact with the work in the form of mounts or backings.

Media
The media that convey the artwork's image may be unstable too. Pigments can fade or darken, and often unequally because of their varied origins. Some drawing-inks bleed or corrode the paper, and some printing inks, especially soft blacks, are easily abraded. Other media are inherently fragile: pastels and charcoal are easily smudged, and thick paint such as oils and gouache can flake off.

Make sure that you have properly identified the media. If you are unsure whether a work is a print or a watercolour, for example, then contact a conservator for help. Note that a hand-coloured print is an example of a mixed-media work; the added watercolour may or may not be contemporary with the original print.

Damage
Exposure to light - especially ultraviolet light - harms both media and paper, but poor-quality mounting and framing damages more works of art on paper than any other agent. Prints, drawings and watercolours can be ruined through contact with unsuitable framing materials, just as they can by amateur restoration and the use of inappropriate techniques in handling, storage and display.

Atmospheric pollutants, such as acidic gases containing sulphur compounds and particulates, are implicated in the destruction of paper. They can change artists' colours too, for example by reacting with organic pigments or binders such as egg white. Biological agents, like insects and mould, affect paper, but they will only flourish as a result of poorly controlled environmental factors, such as high humidity and temperature. Temperature and humidity are interrelated, and must be monitored and controlled in harmony.

Signs of damage
Most owners of old books, watercolours, drawings or prints are familiar with the disfiguring brown spots called foxing. These stains are caused by the bacteria or mould that generally grow on acidic paper when the humidity is high.

It is not just the nature of the support itself that influences its condition. Even good paper will turn brown and brittle when card containing unpurified wood pulp is pressed against it. This is how so many framed works of art on paper are damaged; they are stained on the back and have a brown or orange line around the edge of the image where the acidic mount has 'burnt' the paper.

Yellow stains on paper, especially in regular patches, can be caused by glue or adhesive tapes used to fix the picture into a mount. Do not reach for the self-adhesive tape dispenser to repair tears - adhesive tapes are particularly damaging because the glue creeps into the paper and becomes impossible to remove.

Too much light is usually to blame where a watercolour painting exhibits a strange colour balance or an ink drawing has lost its detail. The original colouring can often be discovered when the mount is lifted and the protected edges of the picture are revealed.

A certain amount of cockling or undulation is usual in handmade paper, but if the work of art is badly distorted, bowing towards the glass in a frame and perhaps wrinkled or even torn at the corners, then it is probably stuck down around the edges. Paper moves naturally in response to changes in humidity, so it is better not to restrain it. Again, call in a conservator if a stuck-down mounting is causing damage to the work.

Storage and Display
The best way to keep most prints, drawings and watercolours is in a specially designed case called a Solander box. The works of art are first mounted in conservation-quality materials, or placed individually in acid-free paper folders, and protected from light and dirt by the box. Plastic sleeves are not suitable for the long-term storage of artworks on paper. Boxes, folders and portfolios must rest horizontally in drawers or on shelves.

When handling a work of art, touch the paper as little as possible and keep your fingers away from the image. This applies equally to present-day prints - the risk of damage is just as high because their immaculate paper is easily marked by skin moisture and oils, so keep them in a mount or acid-free paper folder. It makes sense to demand, as a matter of museum policy, that all persons handling works of art on paper wear cotton gloves.

Pastel and charcoal drawings need extra care because any pressure or abrasion may offset (smudge) the image. Consider keeping such fragile works permanently framed; but do not use modern spray-type fixatives or other materials to preserve them - instead, refer all preservation issues to a specialist conservator. Another danger for these media is the use of acrylic (such as Perspex) glazing when framing. Plastic glazing can carry a considerable static charge that will literally pull the medium off the paper.

You must specify acid-free mount board for all framing (suitable materials are also known as 'museum quality' or 'conservation quality'), and the framer should follow the guidelines for conservation framing published by the Institute of Paper Conservation.

Protect framed prints, drawings and watercolours from all sources of light. Ultraviolet filters (which need periodic checking and replacement) are desirable for both natural and artificial light sources. Of course, display is not possible without light, so try to control the light falling on works of art by using the minimum comfortable light levels for viewing, and visitor-operated time switches or curtains. Never expose a picture to the relentless glare of a spotlight. Take advice from a conservator on measuring and setting the light exposure of items on display.

Try not to hang works of art against the interior of the outside wall of a building; the comparatively low temperature can cause condensation and mould growth inside a frame. Conversely, a radiator or spotlight will dry the air out, and incidentally concentrate dirt by creating convection currents. When choosing a suitable storage area, avoid damp cellars and uninsulated attics. For all classes of object, it is wise to 'zone' your museum buildings based on the environmental characteristics of the various spaces, and place the collection accordingly.

Cleaning and Repair
When the damage is already done, there is little that the non-specialist can do to clean or repair works of art on paper. Traditional remedies such as bread crumbs to clean off dirt and commercially produced tapes to repair tears may do more harm than good, unless the alternative to temporary taping is further fragmentation of the separated parts and a serious loss of material. In this latter case, hand the damaged work to a conservator as soon as possible.
If prints and drawings get really wet, for example from a burst pipe, it is better to lay them out separately on blotting paper to dry using a good cool air circulation, rather than use an artificial heat source. In the case of a serious flood or a fire, get help from a conservator as soon as possible. But you must also try to anticipate sources of damage - for example, you would not display watercolours under a ceiling that conceals a water tank and its associated plumbing.

Your museum should have a documented and rehearsed disaster policy.
Contact a paper conservator through the Conservation Register and they will advise on the most appropriate treatment for your picture. With professional treatment, the condition of the paper and image can at least be stabilised so that their deterioration won't progress. Most damage can be corrected by a skilled conservator, but remember that faded colours cannot be restored to their original brightness and severe paper staining may only be reduced rather than removed.

Sources of Information and Advice
Further reading/useful contacts:
Anne F. Clapp, Curatorial Care of Works of Art on Paper, 1987.ISBN 0-941130-31-2
Guidelines for Conservation Framing of Works of Art on Paper is a leaflet for framers and collectors, obtainable from:

Institute of Paper ConservationBridge House, WatersideUpton upon Severn WR8 0HGPh: 01684 591150Fax: 01684 592380Email: information@ipc.org.ukWebsite: http://www.ipc.org.uk

Paper Definitions

Paper Definitions

The following definitions are taken from Handbook of Pulp & Paper Terminology: A Guide to Industrial and Technological Usage, by Gary A. Smook (Angus Wilde Publications, Bellingham, WA, 1990) and are reprinted with permission of the author. The Handbook presents terms commonly used within the paper industry, in the language of those who use them. As the author says in his preface, the complex and constantly changing technology in this industry continually creates new terms and modifies old ones; furthermore, terms have different meanings in different regions, different sectors of the industry, and different contexts. The author's definitions reflect generally accepted usage.

These definitions were chosen simply because they should be interesting to people outside the paper industry.

DIAZOTYPE BASE PAPER: Smooth, sized paper manufactured from bleached chemical pulp having high tear and folding strength. Suitable papers for diazotype coating also must be chemically inert and free from metallic ions that could adversely affect the photochemical process.

HANGING RAW STOCK: Bulky, hard-sized, toothy-surfaced groundwood paper, which is manufactured in a wide range of grammages for conversion into wallpaper. It is usually coated by the converter and then printed and/or embossed.

NOISELESS PAPER: Bulky, unsized paper made from rag and chemical pulpblends, used for theater programs, studio manuscripts and other applications where the rustle and rattle of paper is objectionable. Syn. Silent Paper.

PIGMENTED PAPER: Paper which has been given a thin pigmented coating, usually at the size press. The coat weight normally does not exceed 5 g/m2 on either side. Pigmented papers bridge the quality gap between groundwood papers and publication grades. In the trade, they are referred to as machine finished, pigmented (MFP) grades. Syn. Semicoated Printing Paper, Slightly Coated Paper.

PRESSBOARD: Hard-calendered board, usually made on an intermittent board machine from 100% chemical pulp, having characteristics of high chemical purity, high density, even thickness, surface smoothness, high strength, and good electrical insulation properties; used for pressing fabrics and as layer insulation in electrical transformers. Syn. Transformer Board, Textile Board.
RUST-INHIBITOR PAPERS: Wrapping papers used for steel articles, that have been impregnated or coated with synthetic rust-inhibitor chemicals.

SENSITIZED PAPERS: Papers that have been treated with a chemical solution to make them surface reactive to light, chemicals or gases. Included in this group are various copy and photographic papers.

THERMAL PAPER: Lightweight paper with a one-sided application of heat sensitive coating, used for facsimilies, computer printouts and medical imaging applications.

VULCANIZING PAPER: Waterleaf paper made of rag and/or chemical pulp, with high chemical purity and controlled cupriethylenediamine viscosity.

Comments and clarifications:
"Pigments" in the paper industry may be colorful, but are often white. The term usually refers to clay, calcium carbonate and titanium dioxide used as fillers and coatings.

The size press is a roll press in the dryer section that applies thin coatings or treatments to paper, spreading the additive across the surface like a glue machine or wax coater spreads glue or wax. It can apply surface sizes, but this is not its only function. It is used for a wide and growing number of treatments.

Waterleaf paper is paper made without sizes, pigments or other additives. Viscosity is a measure of the average molecular weight of cellulose, and therefore an indication of degradation. The lower the viscosity, the more degradation has taken place.

How Wood Superseded Rag

How Wood Superseded Rag
In 1934, B.W. Scribner of the National Bureau of Standards published a long article in the Library Quarterly, reporting the Bureau's recent research on methods of preserving books and newspapers. Most of the standard aspects of preservation were covered--temperature, humidity, light, particulate and pollution control--although they sound quaint to us today. (For instance, a maximum relative humidity of 80% was recommended; today we know that anything above 65% is an invitation to mold growth.)

The article devotes two pages to "Quality of Paper," describing two studies by the Bureau, the first of which concerned the influence of different kinds of fibers on the aging qualities of papers, involving over 300 old books and newspapers from 1830 to about 1900. The first page of that section is reproduced below, because it gives the dates of introduction of mechanical and chemical wood pulp. Results agree closely with those of the Barrow Lab, reported in Strength and Other Characteristics of Book Papers 1800-1899 (Permanence and Durability of the Book, 5), a larger study published in 1967.

Quality of Paper
As the present types of record papers have not been in existence for more than 25 to 100 years, the time varying with the kind of papers, the relative permanence of the better grades as compared with the old hand-made papers still remains to be found by further experience with them. To obtain information on the influence of the different kinds of fibers on the aging qualities of papers, and to define the time periods covering transitions in fiber usage, paper from over 300 old books and newspapers were examined for their condition as related to the kinds of fibers present. The specimens covered quite thoroughly the transitions in paper-making practices from about 1830 to the full development of the modern types of papers and their use about 1900. The papers ranged in condition from those showing little or no evidence of discoloration or brittleness to others which exhibited a dark, brown color and broke readily when creased.

The fiber analyses of these old papers indicated very similar usage in the past of the different kinds of fibers for newspapers and books. Rag fibers were found exclusively until 1868, when the first straw fibers were found, followed by ground wood in 1869 and chemical wood in 1870. From 1867 [sic] to 1895 the newspapers and many of the book papers were composed of various mixtures of rag, straw, chemical wood, and ground-wood fibers. Apparently the present type of newsprint paper, which is composed of a mixture of unbleached chemical-wood fibers (sulphite) and ground-wood fibers, became well established by 1895. Ground wood was found extensively in book papers until 1904. Since that time the book papers have generally been composed of bleached chemical wood and rag fibers, alone or in mixture.

The papers composed of rag fibers were nearly all in excellent condition, and those containing straw and chemical wood fibers, or mixtures of these with rag, were mainly in good condition. On the contrary, nearly all the papers which contained ground wood in appreciable quantity were badly deteriorated. The only important class of record paper in which ground wood is still used is newsprint, and the librarian knows from bitter experience how difficult it is to preserve newspapers. Fortunately, the New York Times initiated in 1927 the practice of printing library editions on high-grade paper, and this innovation has been followed by other publishers.

U.S. Permanent Paper Law

The U.S. Permanent Paper Law: PL 101-423

It has been five years since this law was passed, but it has not fallen into disuse. The National Archives has issued guidelines on implementation within the federal government, and individual states are still working on laws similar to it. Perhaps it will be a convenience to readers if it is reprinted in a current issue of this Newsletter. -Ed.

Joint Resolution To establish a national policy on permanent papers.
Whereas it is now widely recognized and scientifically demonstrated that the acidic papers commonly used for more than a century in documents, books and other publications are self-destructing and will continue to self destruct;

Whereas Americans are facing the prospect of continuing to lose national, historical, scientific, and scholarly records, including government records, faster than salvage efforts can be mounted despite the dedicated efforts of many libraries, archives, and agencies such as the Library pf Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration;

Whereas nationwide hundreds of millions of dollars will have to be spent by the Federal, State, and local governments and private institutions to salvage the most essential books and other materials in the libraries and archives of government, academic and private institutions;
Whereas paper manufacturers can produce a sufficient supply of acid free permanent papers with a life of several hundred years, at prices competitive with acid papers, if publishers would specify the use of such papers, and some publishers and many university presses are already publishing on acid free permanent papers;

Whereas most Government agencies do not require the use of acid fee permanent papers for appropriate Federal records and publications;

Whereas librarians, publishers, and other professional groups have urged the use of acid fee permanent papers;

Whereas even when books are printed on acid free permanent paper this fact is often not made known to libraries by notations in the book or by notations in standard bibliographic listings; and
Whereas there is an urgent need to prevent the continuance of the acid paper problem in the future; Now, therefore be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the united States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. It is the policy of the United Stats that Federal records, books, and publications of enduring value be produced on acid free permanent papers.

SECTION 2. The Congress of the United States urgently recommends that--
(1) Federal agencies require the use of acid free permanent papers for publications of enduring value produced by the Government Printing Office or produced by federal grant or contract, using the specifications for such paper established by the Joint Committee on Printing;

(2)Federal Agencies require the use of archival quality acid free papers for permanently valuable Federal records and confer with the National Archives and Records Administration on the requirements for paper quality;

(3) American publishers and state and local governments use acid free permanent papers for publications of enduring value, in voluntary compliance with the American National Standard;

(4) all publishers, private and governmental, prominently note the use of acid free permanent paper in books, advertisements, catalogs, and standard bibliographic listings; and

(5) the Secretary of State, Librarian of Congress, Archivist of the United States, and other Federal officials make known the national policy regarding acid free permanent papers to foreign governments and appropriate international agencies since the acid paper problem is worldwide and essential foreign materials being imported by our libraries are printed on acid papers.

SEC. 3 The Librarian of Congress, the Archivist of the United States, and the Public Printer shall jointly monitor the Federal Government's progress in implementing the national policy declared in section 1 regarding acid free permanent papers and shall report to the Congress regarding such progress on December 31, 1995.

In carrying out the monitoring and reporting functions under this section, the Librarian of Congress, the Archivist of the United States, and the Public Printer may consult with the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Agricultural Library, National Library of Medicine, other Federal and State agencies, international organizations, private publishers, paper manufacturers, and other organizations with an interest in preservation of books and historical papers

Paper Aging Research

Paper Aging Research at TNO
John Havermans, who works as a chemist at the TNO Centre for Paper and Board Research in Delft, sent in the following news on September 17.

Some of the research topics he and/or his co-workers are working on or planning to investigate are:

Effects of light on deacidified papers. By measuring oxygen consumption, they can follow the light-induced deterioration of deacidified papers. This project will be completed in 1997.
Effects of accelerated aging (by autoxidation) on different grades of deacidified and untreated papers. Papers will be exposed to an oxidative agent, ozone. This project is ready to begin in 1997.

A literature survey on the effects of (high) alkalinity on old and oven-aged papers after deacidification. This project will be completed within a few months.

Development of a universal procedure for archive assessment (i.e., a condition survey procedure). The amount of damage to objects in archives can be quantified by recording the consultability and type and amount of damage, using a new sampling procedure. This can help policy makers in archives create a good budget for conservation work. This project is being carried out on commission for the Dutch State Archives, and will be completed within a year. They would like to involve more archives when the project reaches the testing stage next year. Archives that would like to participate are welcome. There are no start-up costs any more, only costs for doing a spot check and adding their archive to the TNO model.

Following the effects of ambient levels of air pollutants on natural aging of different papers stored in two rooms at the Dutch National Archives. One storage room has air purification, and the other has none.

Update: ASTM/ISR Paper Aging Research Program
by R. Bruce ArnoldChair, Research Program Sponsor Committee
The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and its subsidiary division, the Institute for Standards Research (ISR), is fully launched in the first phases of its research program. The purpose of the program is to conduct credible studies of the physical, chemical, and optical aspects of printing and writing paper aging in a way that will lead to accelerated aging test methods that define the life expectancy of the papers. The purpose is to use the results to move from standards that specify composition requirements, to standards that are based only on the performance requirements of end users.

This program is currently sponsored by 25 organizations in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. They include pulp and paper companies; libraries, archives, and other cultural conservation organizations; government groups; and suppliers to the pulp and paper industry. The program has a budget of $4.0 million. This includes both direct cash contributions and various types of in-kind support. To date the program is approximately $1.3 million short of its goal. Fund-raising efforts continue to be actively pursued.

The program began with manufacture of 15 very fully characterized papers, for which most of the pulp was donated by sponsor companies. Of these, 13 were made at the Herty Foundation in Savannah, Georgia, and the other two were made and contributed by Crane & Co., Inc., of Dalton, MA. These papers include both acid and alkaline papers. They range from a pure long-staple cotton furnish to a mix of 20% bleached northern softwood kraft and 80% slush stone groundwood pulp. Other furnishes include those of pure northern softwood kraft pulp, pure softwood bleached chemithermomechanical (BCTMP) pulp, mixtures of softwood and hardwood kraft, and mixtures of softwood kraft and hardwood BCTMP.

For each of the 15 sets of paper, more than 30,000 sheets of 8-1/2 x 11-inch size were produced. Each of these papers were fully randomized within their type so than when boxed into 500-sheet reams, all contained some of all parts of the production of that type. The randomized papers were then shrink-wrapped in polyethylene film, boxed in alkaline cartons, and packed into corrugated containers. Each type of paper was then stored on its own pallet for shipment to a cold storage facility.

Prior to shipment to the research organizations for scientific evaluation or to libraries and archives for long-term storage, these papers are being kept in cold storage to minimize the amount of aging that can take place. They are held just above the freezing mark, and because of their packaging, they are stored in the dark to prevent unwanted light aging.

There are basically four areas of research focus in the program. They include three specific efforts to develop accelerated aging test methods. The other focus is on basic, fundamental issues of physics and chemistry associated with paper aging that are not fully understood. Work is in progress toward development of all test methods.

The first program currently underway to develop an accelerated aging test method utilizes elevated concentrations of pollutant gases as the aging accelerant. This work is being conducted by the Image Permanence Institute at Rochester Institute of Technology. Mr. James Reilly is the principal investigator. In this program, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone are utilized separately and in combinations to age the papers. Gas concentrations that approximate 10, 100, and 1000 times the normal amount found in a well-managed office space or library are used to accelerate the aging. The exposure times range from one to six months, with longer exposures assigned to the lowest gas concentrations. Both chemical and physical evaluations of the exposed papers are undertaken at equal intervals. Six such evaluations are done for each condition, so as to develop curves of the paper degradation.

The Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is conducting a two-part study of light aging. Dr. Rajai Atalla is the principal investigator. In the first part, a three-year study of natural aging is underway. In this work, in three separate chambers, natural daylight through a north-facing window, fluorescent light, and halogen light are utilized to expose all 15 of the specially made papers. In early findings, natural daylight is found to cause more rapid yellowing of the papers than artificial illumination.

The second part of the FPL studies involves exposure of the papers to high photon flux levels in a specially prepared chamber. Studies of the papers are being conducted to evaluate the nature of photochemical changes taking place. Physical tests of the papers are also conducted to determine if physical properties are affected by the exposures. The marriage of the natural and accelerated aging studies is intended to lead to a light aging test method that will predict life expectancy of papers in terms of their brightness and color properties.

The U.S. Library of Congress is involved in an ongoing research program. They are providing their findings to the ASTM/ISR research effort. Dr. Chandru Shahani is the principal investigator. Their focus is on development of a test method utilizing elevated temperature in the presence of a reasonable level of relative humidity as the means to accelerate the aging. To study the relationships between accelerated and natural aging, the Library is utilizing specially developed techniques to measure the products of paper degradation caused by aging.

The principal technique is the use of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Dr. Peng Song has been contracted by the ISR to assist the Library in the development and use of these techniques. Aging of papers is done over a range of temperatures from 70° to 90°C and through a range of relative humidities from 40 to 90%. Six of the specially made papers of the ASTM/ISR program will be evaluated. They represent the full range of composition variables of these papers. Additionally, four commercial papers, selected by the Library, are already under investigation. Single sheets, stacks of sheets, and sheets enclosed in sealed glass tubes are all included in the study.

While not yet funded, some of the fundamental studies desired include evaluations of acidity and basicity at the molecular level. The work is also aimed at oxidation and autoxidation studies. Such considerations as oxidation by peroxy radicals, alkaline "peeling" reactions at mildly alkaline pH, and measurements of the volatile products of paper aging are included. Arrhenius studies of various variables are an intended part of the overall program.

In order to optimize available funding, first priority is being given to those elements of the work that must be completed to develop scientifically credible test methods that can be used to predict the life expectancy of these papers.

The program is intended to be a three-year effort. The first key phase, already underway, is expected to be complete by the end of 1998. If additional fundraising efforts are successful, the remaining work should be complete by the end of 1999.

Paper Topics

Condensed Classification of Paper Topics
as used for APA Literature Section

3A. Books; books & paper
3A9. Permanence & durability of books, records & book paper; printing, copying & writing materials from user's point of view.
3A9.1 Edition bindings & theses
3A9.2 Office printers and copiers; toners
3A9.3 Printing & inks.
3A9.4 Encouraging use of permanent paper; users
3A9.5 Permanent paper for govt use; choosing documents to print on permanent paper
3A9.6 Standards & specs for paper & enclosures .
3A9.7 Tests for permanence useful for producers & consumers of paper.
3A9.8 pH studies of new library books; analysis of old book papers by date. Analysis of archival board.
3A9.9 Alkaline mills, papers & distributors

3B. Paper: Research, Manufacture, History
3B1. Research and testing on permanence & deterioration. 3B1.1 Overviews of paper permanence & deterioration
3B1.2 Aging of pulp or paper
3B1.21 Accelerated aging; what happens during aging and how to measure it
3B1.22 Natural aging; effect of handling; durability; monitoring the natural aging process; Russell effect, chemiluminescence; fingerprints
3B1.23 Aging with pollutants; acid migration
3B1.24 Light aging research, standards & testing
3B1.25 Tidelines research
3B1.26 Physical measures - fold, tear, etc.
3B1.4 Color reversion, lightfastness
3B1.5 Effects of metals as catalysts in bleaching & other mill processes, & in paper; chelates
3B1.6 Measurement & effects of pH, alkaline reserve, and alkaline sizing
3B1.7 Permanence & fiber type/lignin
3B1.8 Treatment or manufacturing processes or agents that may affect permanence, e.g. filler, fines, coatings, wet strength resins, size press additives, optical (fluorescent) brighteners, retention aids.
3B1.9 Inks, toners, & pigments: image permanence.
3B3. Papermaking; pulping; weird papers; color in papermaking; microbes in the mill.
3B3.1 Health effects of paper (allergies etc.)
3B3.2 Hand papermaking: western, eastern & traditional
3B3.4 Alkaline & neutral; wet end chemistry
3B3.41 Trends in alkaline production.
3B3.42 History of alkaline/permanent papermaking;
3B3.44 CaCO3; other fillers
3B3.45 Alum; aluminum compounds/ion
3B3.46 Converting performance of alkaline paper
3B3.5 Distribution, pricing
3B3.6 Recycling paper
3B3.61 Effect of recycling on paper qualities
3B3.63 Recycling regulations; broke
3B3.64 Deinked market pulp mills
3B3.7 The paper industry (production, etc.)
3B3.71 Classification of paper
3B3.72 Pulp & wood shortage; price volatility of pulp
3B3.73 Purchase/sale of mills, shutdowns.
3B3.8 Pulping; effect on fiber; recycled market pulp
3B3.82 Enzymes & catalysts for pulping/bleaching
3B3.83 Bleaching
3B3.84 Nonwood fibers
3B3.85 Mechanical pulps: pulping, bleaching & papermaking aspects.
3B3.86 Lignin
3B3.87 Buffered groundwood
3B3.9 Environmental issues in papermaking; dioxin; chlorine; mill closure; environmentalism and reactions to it.
3B3.91 Toxic effluents; TCF & ECF pulp; toxic metals & compounds in recycled paper.
3B3.92 Closure or water recycling in mills
3B3.93 Environmentalism
3B3.94 Life cycle analysis
3B3.95 Forestry practices
3B3.96 Composting, landspreading, incineration of sewage and waste paper; sludge
3B3.97 Waterless papermaking

Pulp Mills and Paper Mills

Papermaking Facts
by Ellen McCrady

Pulp Mills and Paper Mills
Pulp mills make pulp from wood chips, separating the fibers by a grinding process, enzymatic or chemical action, heat or pressure, used either alone or in combination. After pulping, the pulps intended for use in white papers are transferred to the mill's bleach plant.
Paper mills receive that pulp and make paper out of it. They do not bleach paper on the scale used in bleach plants, although they may add a bleach to the slurried pulp to prevent yellowing (usually in groundwood pulps) before sending it to the paper machine. If they want to make white paper, they generally use white pulp.

Sometimes paper mills buy their pulp on the market, and sometimes they get it from a pulp mill located on the same site.

Pulping
There are two main kinds of pulp, mechanical and chemical.

Mechanical. If pulping is done mainly by mechanical or physical means, the product is called groundwood or "mechanical" pulp. Lignin is deliberately left in this kind of pulp, for economic reasons. Groundwood is made by grinding whole wood logs against a rotating stone. Mechanical pulps are made from wood chips by passing the chips through refiners. The refiners produce refiner mechanical pulp; if heat is used, thermomechanical pulp; if chemicals are used, chemimechanical; and if both heat and chemicals are used, thermochemimechanical (or chemithermomechanical) pulp.

Mechanical pulps are used to make newsprint and magazine paper, as well as boxes and a variety of other products. (Although grocery bags are brown, they are made not from mechanical pulp, but from unbleached kraft.) If mechanical pulp will be used for printed matter, it is bleached, usually with hydrogen peroxide, which is able to whiten the pulp without removing the lignin.

Chemical. There are two main chemical pulping processes: kraft or sulphate (alkaline), and sulphite (which may be acid, neutral or alkaline). Most pulp mills in the U.S. and worldwide use the kraft process, while most European mills use one of the sulphite processes.

Many people assume that the chemicals used in pulping give the fibers a permanent and fixed pH; that is, if an alkaline pulping process is used, they believe paper made from that pulp will be alkaline. Not true. The pulp is washed at the pulp mill, and when it gets to the paper mill, the pH of the stock is under the complete control of the papermaker. The paper produced can have a pH anywhere from 4.0 to 10.0 (or even outside that range, for specialty papers), regardless of the pulping or bleaching process it underwent earlier.

In order to make chemical pulp for "freesheet" or "woodfree" (printing and writing) paper, wood chips are cooked under pressure, with the aid of chemicals, in order to dissolve the lignin and separate the fibers. Chemicals are selected to act on the lignin and to have a minimal effect on the cellulose; temperature and pressure are not simply maximized to save time, but are chosen to give the best effect. Those who understand and carry out the chemical pulping process know the importance of retaining fiber strength. If the fiber is degraded, the pulp or paper made from it may be impossible to sell, so fiber strength is monitored, using standard tests.

Bleaching
Ten or twelve years ago, the standard bleaching sequence for kraft mills included elemental chlorine and chlorine dioxide, combined with alkaline extraction. Then it was learned that certain toxic chlorine compounds, collectively called "dioxin" in the press, were showing up in the mills' effluent. Spurred by EPA regulations, most mills are now bleaching without the elemental (gaseous) chlorine, in a process called "elemental chlorine free," which reduces the dioxin to undetectable levels, and has no measurable effect on the fish that live in the river that receives the mill's effluent.

The effect of the bleaching process on fiber is carefully monitored, and a growing variety of bleaching agents and sequences are available to optimize both brightness and retention of fiber strength.

Papermaking
Stock preparation. Before pulp goes to the paper machine, it has to be refined (beaten) to increase fiber to fiber bonding potential and make a stronger paper. If it is beaten too much, tear strength suffers while tensile strength and burst continue to increase; the pulp sheet becomes denser, less porous, more translucent and more likely to swell and cockle in contact with water.
Most papermaking chemicals are added at this stage. Each grade of paper requires a specific combination of furnish ingredients which are selected according to the specifications of the paper being produced. This includes acids or bases to control pH, sizing agents, dry strength adhesives (starch, gums), wet strength resins, fillers (e.g., clay, CaCO3), dyes and pigments, drainage aids, and optical brighteners.

The fourdrinier or "wet end": The stock mixture is pumped to the headbox of the fourdrinier and spread onto the moving "wire" or screen below, which vibrates to induce microturbulence in the stock as the water drains through. Vacuum boxes below the wire speed the drainage. An increasingly popular way to speed up the papermaking process is to use a twin-wire former (or other mechanism), to draw the water off simultaneously from above and below. At the end of the wire the paper web is transferred to the couch ("cooch") felt with vacuum from the couch roll to lift the paper off the wire and lead it into the dry end.

The dry end: The mat of fibers on its endless belt of felt is carried around or past the presses (rolls which squeeze out excess water), first dryer (a set of steam-heated drums), size press (to apply surface additives), calender (a set of high-pressure rolls), and paper machine reel. Coating may be done either on the machine or in another location.

How Paper Gets to the Customer
After the paper is made, it is sent to a converter if it has to be cut to size, packaged, made into bags and boxes, or otherwise prepared for use. (Some mills, however, do their own converting.) If the paper was made to order for a certain customer, it is shipped directly to that customer. If it will be sold on the open market, it usually goes to a distributor, whose customers include printers and office supply stores. Some distributors have their own retail outlets for customers who buy small amounts for personal use.

Since paper passes through so many hands, few salespeople know which products meet permanence standards, or even whether a given product is acid-free (alkaline). This information is not usually found on the package, and few papers made in this country carry watermarks to show whether they are alkaline or permanent. Thus the complexity of the marketing process deprives many customers of important information relating to their own paper requirements.
Caveat: This is not All There is to Papermaking

I have tried to describe a complex, variable, rapidly evolving process, which is really a number of processes, because each mill has a unique set of methods. It is probably impossible to make any generalization about papermaking that does not have important exceptions.

To fill out the picture, normally I would recommend a few books, but the textbooks that cover industrial papermaking are generally either quite technical or too narrow in focus, and books on hand papermaking do not cover industrial processes. One way to learn more is to take a course or workshop at a papermaking school. The Institute for Paper Science and Technology (IPST) in Atlanta can provide a list of paper schools. Call 404/894-7819.

The recently issued second edition of Saltman's Pulp and Paper Primer may serve the purpose. Although it has only 32 pages, the publisher's blurb says it "offers a complete introduction and nontechnical explanation of the pulping and papermaking industry. the book offers detailed explanations of the pulping process, papermaking operation, finishing and converting procedures, and auxiliary support systems, and provides a history of the paper industry and shows its economic importance." It was revised and updated by Laura Thompson, and published by TAPPI (item no. 0101R110). Price for non-TAPPI members: $20. Call 800/332-8686. ISBN 89852-344-3.

For an illustrated coverage of papermaking, there are two possibilities, a slide show and a set of CD-ROMs. The slide show, "Paper Clips," is a set of 25 slides accompanied by a detailed script, for classroom presentations "to audiences of all ages." $25 from TAPPI. Manufacture is one of four topics it covers.

"How Paper is Made/Highlights" is a one- or two-hour CD-ROM that "offers just enough information for printers, converters, students, and the public to get a clear idea of what's involved in making paper." (It was condensed from the eight-hour-long CD-ROM set intended for training technical people in the mill, entitled "How Paper is Made: An Overview of Pulping and Papermaking from Woodyard to Finished Product.") The Highlights CD-ROM can be ordered from TAPPI for $99 ($16 members).

Acknowledgements
I am indebted to Terry Norris, Bill Scott and Michael Kocurek for reviewing the accuracy and completeness of this chapter from North American Permanent Paper, which has also been mounted on Abbey Publications' web site at . It has been slightly revised for publication in the last issue of the Alkaline Paper Advocate.

Directories
1. Lockwood-Post's Directory of the Pulp, Paper and Allied Trades. Annual. Miller Freeman, in California, 408/848-5296. Regular ed. $257; traveler's ed., $217; add shipping & handling. About 1000 pages, with over 16 sections, including statistics of the industry, executive offices, pulp & paper mills (which itemizes personnel, equipment, and products), paper merchants & distributors, watermarks & brands, wood pulp agents, and more. Mills, converters, and merchants are listed geographically.

2. The Paper Buyers' Encyclopedia. Annual. Grade Finders, Inc., 662 Exton Commons, Exton, PA 19341 (610/524-7070). E-mail: info@gradefinders.com. $95. Lists manufacturers, converters, and suppliers; then the "Grade Finder Section," which lists papers by classification and gives detailed information for each. Classification is based on the use (e.g., offset, reply card), physical and special characteristics (e.g., coated, watermarked, recycled) of the papers, and quality or grade (super premium, super premium no. 1, premium no. 1, and numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). This is the only reference book in the paper industry that indicates whether a particular paper is alkaline or not.

The last 180 pages in the volume have lists and indexes, a section on "How to Buy Paper," a glossary, and an index of all the papers in the main list, among other things. The Grade Finder section can be bought as a separate book, called the Competitive Grade Finder.

3. Walden's ABC Guide and Paper Production Yearbook. Annual. $135 + $5 shipping. Walden-Mott Corp. 6" x 9". 648 pages. Sections:

The nature of the Rags

"The nature of the Rags"
From The Elder James Whatman, Appendix V, "White Paper And Its Cellulosic Content"

PART I is entitled " The nature of the Rags used for making White Paper in the 17th and 18th C. Paper Mills of the British Isles" and has the following sections.
Cotton
Wool
Hemp
Flax

The Quality of the Linen The Flax Retting Process
The Rag Fermentation Process

Variations in other characteristics of the Rag
From Textile to Rag in the 17th & 18th Cs.

Rags to Paper
Here we present two of them:
FLAX (Linum usitatissimum)
The flax plant is the source of the linen textile which, as we have seen, is likely to have been the principal source of the rags used to make White paper for most of the period that we are concerned with here.

Flax is the strongest and oldest of the vegetable fibres used by man; it has been used by him since paleolithic times. The weaving of linen cloth had reached an advanced state in Ancient Egypt; it was in use in Roman Britain, but the spinning and weaving of it declined after the fall of the Empire. By 1400 its cultivation and use had been firmly re-established, but the quality of the domestic cloth was said to have been coarse. The industry, in spite of encouragement later from Acts of Parliament and Protection, never seems to have flourished in England, although there appears to have been no shortage of linen textiles in the country during the 17th and 18th Cs., a subject already discussed in the main text. Increasingly the industry felt the competition from cotton.

By the mid-18th C. the domestic manufacture of cotton goods benefited from the protection afforded to the growing linen industry, partly because Fustian (linen warp/cotton weft) was an important outlet for the linen yarn. The earlier Calico Acts (1701 and 1721), which had prohibited the wearing of coloured Indian calicoes and which were primarily designed to help the wool trade, ironically stimulated the growth of the English calico industry instead. Cotton in the end helped destroy the English linen industry, which had mothered its early growth and had lived with it for a considerable period.

For the domestic production of textiles (and, subsequently, the supply of linen rags for the expanding paper industry) flax had considerable disadvantages when trying to compete with cotton, which ultimately superseded it in meeting the greatly increased demand for clothing and furnishing fabrics at the end of the 18th C., at a time when the early difficulties of maintaining an adequate and regular supply of raw cotton were being overcome as well as achieving an improvement in its quality.

The cultivation of flax, compared to that of cotton, was a very slow and demanding business; it lacked the flexibility for increasing production that its rival possessed. It has been said that flax is the most costly, troublesome and precarious of all crops to cultivate; Moreover, there were processing difficulties, the mechanisation of spinning linen thread lagged well behind that of cotton and even to-day, apparently, some hand feeding to machines is still necessary.

Though the linen rag was virtually the only material available to the maker of the best qualities of White paper in Britain for the period under consideration here, in terms of its cellulose content flax in its dry raw state is not as pure as cotton; these impurities had an important bearing on the method used to process the rags. There are many factors which also affect the quality of the linen and which have to be taken into account. These are examined next.

The Quality of the Linen
It has been said that the texture of some early European papers was coarse and that they had inferior felting properties (this means poor consolidation during sheet formation, a subject covered in Part II). Some of these defects may have been due to the inability of the beating equipment to cope with the materials properly; but evidently these papers also contained varying proportions of imperfectly retted flax fibres. The same source states that even as late as the 18th C. some papers, all watermarked, were quite brown from the use of unbleached "flax" (sic).

The use of imperfectly retted flax fibres or of unbleached linen would almost certainly account for the presence of shive in inferior "white" papers of this period, papers that were otherwise of reasonable strength. This sort of paper probably found its way mostly into printing rather than writing uses. It can be seen then that the use of strong linen rags did not automatically produce the top qualities of White paper. In the passages that follow we shall be looking briefly at some of the possible reasons that may have led to variations in the quality of the linen rags that reached the paper mill.

There were, for instance, political, geographical and cultural factors that could have affected the quality of the linen thread; and there were, in addition, process differences that would have caused variations in the quality of the finished textile. Over and above all this by the time the linen rags reached the paper mill and came to be used for making paper, the cloth would have passed through a whole series of random as well as organised selection processes which effectively prevent positive identification of any single factor as the cause of the defect that we may observe. All the same any one of these influences could have had an overriding effect in determining the general level of the quality of the linen produced and thus the rag reaching the paper mill.

One can reasonably assume that in the course of the long history of the linen industry the skills needed for producing thread from the flax plant would have been perfected as far as the empirical procedures for control at the disposal of the producers would allow. This assumption is important in that the quality of the fibre is greatly dependent on both the method of cultivating the flax plant and on the processes used subsequently to isolate and purify the fibre, methods involving stages of great technological complexity. Though the skills may have been there, it is necessary to qualify this assumption by saying that this does not imply that the quality of the production of linen from flax was universally high at this time.

It will be recalled (see Chapter II) that during the early part of the 17th C. the British paper industry was very small and, in fact, as Professor Coleman has pointed out, such rags as were available in this country were being exported to France. But by ca.1670 the situation was changing and an expansion in the domestic paper industry was taking place with a consequent demand for raw materials to support this growth and the supply of these depended, though not necessarily proportionately, on the level of textiles available in this country. But the conditions that determined this supply were complicated at this time and remained so for the next century. Both domestic and foreign sources have to be taken into consideration and these changed radically during this period.

It has been estimated that in the late 16th and early 17th Cs. 14% of all English agricultural labourers were employed in producing flax (a further 15% hemp); the industry continued to grow rather than diminish, so it could be said that at the beginning of the 18th C. the English linen industry was an important one; but by international standards it was small and completely overshadowed by imports of textiles, chiefly those from France. However, several events conspired to complicate and change this situation, these stemming principally from the effect of raising the Duties on these imports (to provide revenue to pay for the current wars rather than to encourage the growth of the domestic industry).

The consequences of the various rates of Duty imposed between 1660-1760 (too complicated to cover here) were far reaching and concern us at this point only to demonstrate that the sources of supply for the linen found in this country were very varied and altered frequently. Thus, besides having a domestic source, we were importing initially large quantities of linen from France; other suppliers included Flanders, Holland, Germany and, later, Russia.

The effect of higher tariffs from 1690 onwards was to hit French imports the hardest; as the duties increased Flemish and Dutch imports were also affected, though the bias still remained anti-French. The only source favoured by these actions was Germany. The rates of Duty were related to the width and not the quality of their cloth. The Germans made narrow width textiles and were thus able to improve the quality of their cloth at the expense of the French and at the same time pay much lower Duty.

Harte maintains that it was the Duty of this period (1697-1712) that had the biggest impact on the realignment of the sources of imported linen. Imports of French linen declined sharply towards the end of the 17th C.; Flemish and Dutch by the early 18th; but German imports continued to grow until the 1730's, only declining after 1750. Some cloth continued to find its way into this country by the practice of fraudulently misrepresenting its country of origin. Also, as mentioned in the main text, it has been reckoned that about 33% of the linen entering this country by-passed the Excise and was smuggled in mainly from France and Holland.

At the same time as all this was taking place, an Act of 1696 allowed hemp and flax to be imported Duty free from Ireland, ostensibly to encourage foreign Protestants to settle there; but, be that as it may, it also had a galvanizing effect on the local linen industry of the north. Although earlier attempts had been made to foster a linen industry in Ireland, it was not until the early 18th C. that it really got under way and then in the northern provinces. This resulted from a combination of different events and conditions.

Gill has identified the following factors that led to this rapid and unexpected expansion; the expulsion of the Huguenots from France brought capital and technical know-how to the north of Ireland (amongst other places); as seen above an Act of William III's permitted flax, linen yarn and cloth to be imported into England from Ireland Duty free; Antwerp, the main market for linen, was cut off by war; to these may be added the contribution made by Scottish, Dutch and Lancastrian Settlers together with the very important effects deriving from the local system of land tenure; the soil, the climate, the abundance of water and the fact that flax could be grown remuneratively on small-holdings; untapped skills in weaving and a ready market for the cloth in England.

According to Harte by 1750 imports from Ireland and Scotland exceeded continental supplies (excluding the smuggled linen); by the 1760's imports from Ireland alone exceeded those from the Continent. Likewise by the 1730's imports of Irish linen were already driving out German cloth. By this time also the Northern Ireland bleacheries were eclipsing, though not completely, the famous ones at Haarlem.

Throughout this period the English linen industry had remained an important but small one; nevertheless it can be seen from the foregoing that the bulk of the cloth in this country (from which the papermaking rags would ultimately be derived) had come from many different sources and that these had chopped and changed dramatically between the latter half of the 17th C. and the first half of the 18th and continued to alter. The paper maker's interest in this altering situation would have lain more in the way it might have affected the quality of his raw material rather than the quantity.

The industry itself was not confronted by any shortage of textiles but the scarcity of rags emanating from them. It was this, coupled with the inefficient methods employed in collecting them, that created the difficulties. To complicate this picture even further, as the 18th C. progressed because of the shortages it became increasingly necessary for the rapidly growing paper industry to import rags, the quantity of rag imports rising some twenty-fold between 1725 and 1800, a large proportion of them coming from Germany. It will be obvious from this state of affairs that the quality of the linen, whether in prime cloth or rag form, could have varied considerably. The question may be asked, did it ? Though one cannot identify today specific examples of this, it is nevertheless indisputable that this was the case.

The quality of the fibres in the linen rags would have depended to a degree on the state of the art employed in cultivating the plant and extracting the flax from it and this would have varied from locality to locality as indeed the special skills required in each case. For example, retting was carried out in ponds or flax dams in Ireland and in flowing water at Courtrai in Flanders. This would have produced important differences in the conditions required for this microbiological process and its control.

Similarly, the density of the cultivation and the degree of ripeness when the crop was pulled up from the ground both affected the quality of the flax fibre, these leading to fine or coarse yarn as the case may be. In addition, the effects of other variables in the extraction process, could lead to variations in the quantities of non-cellulosic residues remaining in the fibre bundles. To all of these must be added the effects of the various processes that led to the finished textile, like bleaching, as well as to substances that may have become associated with the cloth later in its life such as applied starch etc.

Not all of these variables would have necessarily affected the manufacture of White paper, because the Rag Sorting process would probably have taken care of the more obvious differences between the textiles and the rags that they produced. But there were variables, such as those arising from the retting process, which would have been less obvious to the paper maker and which would have had an important influence on the effect of the treatment applied to the rags during the papermaking process.

To-day, with the greater understanding that we have of the chemistry of the process, we can look back with hindsight and see the kind of dangers that lay in the path of a weaver who grew his own flax, as was the practice in both Ireland and Flanders. One wonders just how much control the producer had had over his process remembering that right from the outset he would have been saddled with all the other variables referred to above, the climate, the soil, the density of the crop etc. So at this point it would be instructive to examine the retting process at the centre of this issue.

From The Elder James Whatman, Appendix V, Part I, "The nature of the Rags used for making White Paper in the 17th and 18th C. Paper Mills of the British Isles", p. 187

The Papermaking Process

The Papermaking Process From the Introduction, The Whatmans and Wove Paper

The process in use in England at the time of the development of the first wove papers, namely, towards the end of the first half of the 18th C., was made up of five basic stages. Only one of these is really relevant to the subject of this book, that is the formation of the sheet at the vat and the subsequent dewatering of the paper. But the other four and closely interdependent stages would have had a bearing on the quality of the finished product and in due course would require adjustment to suit new manufacturing needs; so it is not always possible to divorce the one from the others. As it happened the process had been undergoing a major technological change for several decades and in some paper mills this was still in progress. The main features of this were changes in the method of stock preparation, improvements to the surface of the paper and the method used to construct the laid papermaking mould, all relevant in the present context[2].

Most people today would come across a sheet of paper in its dry and sized state; but its formation takes place in the wet state from a suspension of carefully prepared cellulose fibres in water[3].

The stages which precede and follow this operation are:-

1. The selection of the raw material
During the eighteenth century paper was made from rags. The supply and quality of these tended to be irregular, a mixture of all kinds and varying in degrees of cleanness. White paper, especially White Writing, was the best and was made from furnishes composed almost entirely of linen rags, employing only the whitest of these. As the paper maker of those times had no process available to him for improving their whiteness other than washing the rags in cold water (see stage two), it follows that the ultimate whiteness of the paper was directly dependent on the skill of the rag sorters in selecting the right qualities during the initial stages of the process, a skill that should in no way be underestimated.

2. The conversion of rags into pulp (or "stuff" as it was called)
After sorting, the rags were washed and dismembered in water into their component threads (rag-breaking, one of the most critical phases in the whole papermaking operation) using low consistencies (ratio of stuff to water) and the equipment outlined below. Having achieved this state the consistency was increased and the threads were subdivided into their ultimate fibres, at the same time plasticizing them in readiness for sheet formation (the beating operation).

Mechanical processes were used to achieve these states, processes that had evolved from their most primitive form in which a pestle and mortar had been employed. In Europe the first major advance had been to replace the early methods with a process that used heavy hammers, armed with nails and raised and lowered by means of water power, to pulp the rags[4].

By the time wove paper came into being this technique had been replaced by a revolutionary new method where the rags were reduced to pulp by what was known as a washer/beater, the "Engine", a contrivance that originated in Holland during the seventeenth century[5].

In this Engine the rags, immersed in water, were circulated in an oval and contoured trough by means of a cylindrical roll, furnished with axially oriented metal bars (fly-bars), rotating at high speed and grinding the rags against fixed bars set in a bed-plate, the whole of this plant driven by the paper mill's waterwheel. This was a very skilled operation, only marginally less so than that required for making a sheet of paper by hand.

3. Sheet-making and consolidation
Before this could take place the stuff had to be diluted with further water to a milk-like consistency in readiness for the vatman to make his sheet. He achieved this by separating the fibre from the water, in which it was suspended, using a sieve-like construction, the papermaking mould, which allowed the free water to pass through it leaving the newly formed wet sheet on its wire cover (an operation that is described in greater detail later).

The next phase was to separate the wet sheet from the mould, a function performed by a second member of the vat crew, the coucher, who transferred it onto a woollen cloth by means of a combined rotary and pressing action. Another woollen cloth (the hand felt) was pitched over this, followed by the transference of yet another sheet in a similar manner. This sequence of actions led to a pile of interleaved felts and sheets, known as a post. The sheet at this stage was still very wet and fragile.

The post was taken away and pressed in a screw press to remove as much of the remaining free water as possible. After withdrawal the sheets were in a sufficiently consolidated state to allow a third member of the vat crew (the layer) to separate each sheet (the fibres were now held together by surface tension forces) from the hand felts and lay sheet upon sheet (a pile known as a pack) ready for further pressing (pack-pressing) and then separating again (pack-parting) before being removed to a drying loft. Here the sheets were air-dried. As drying proceeded so inter-cellulose hydrogen bonds were progressively formed to give the dry paper its strength. In this waterleaf state it was an absorbent article unsuitable for use with aqueous media such as ink or watercolour.

4. Sizing
This is an additive process that confers on the paper the ability to bear ink. The traditional practice of immersing the unsized sheet in a tub filled with a hot solution of gelatine to which potash alum had been added was observed in the 18th C. The function of the alum was to fix or cross-link the gelatine to the cellulose sub-strate[6]. Excess gelatine was pressed out and the sheet dried once again in a loft under carefully controlled conditions, first cooling the paper to convert the size from the sol to the gel state; and then either protecting it from exposure to excessive chilling or ensuring that the size did not revert to the sol state as it might have done in very hot weather. This was always a very tricky operation, "le collage du papier manque souvent"[7].

5. Sorting, Finishing and Packing
These activities were performed in the Salle where the felt hairs were removed from the surface of the paper which was then sorted for faults and graded into various qualities, the best being "White Writing" (important to note in the context of this work). Lower grades, but still White, were used for printing and copy papers. Finishing (or Perfecting) generally involved further, dry, pressing; and, in special cases, the paper might have been subjected to a so-called glazing process, which could have taken the form of hammering; slicking with a smooth stone; or the use of a glazing wheel to buff the surface. Not all papers were perfected because hand press printing involved moistening the paper again (a practice that persisted until quite late in the 19th C.) which would have nullified any "finish" given to the sheets. As the paper had been air-dried in this process there was no need to leave it to "mature" for long periods as in more recent times.

The sheets were then counted into quires and reams, the former being folded with defective or broken sheets placed between them, the worst of these being on the outside. The whole was then tied up in wrappers made out of "vat bottoms" and other waste material.

The above is a very much abridged account of the papermaking process, but it should be sufficient for the purpose of this book, placing the sheet-making operation in perspective.
A sheet of paper can, however, be formed in a number of different ways. This is an appropriate point to outline some of these in order to present the first European specimens of wove paper in their proper context.

Footnotes
[2] Balston, J.N. Bib.2 A detailed account of the changes that took place in the making of paper by hand in Britain between the end of the 17th C. and the third and following decades of the 18th, and their impact on the economics of the process, the improved status of the domestic White paper industry and the quality of its products. This work should be consulted, if further information is required beyond the summary account in the text above. (Introduction to both Volumes: and Vol.I Chapters I Part 3; V & VI; Vol.II App.V).

[3] Water is used with or without additives. Other liquids have been used experimentally in order to demonstrate the essential relationship between cellulose/water which imparts strength to a sheet through inter-cellulose hydrogen bonding, a property not conferred on it by other solvents (Bib.2 App.V).

[4] Illustrated accounts may be found in Bib.2 Chap.VI Plates 11, 12; or, more extensively, Le Francois de Lalande, J.J. Bib.8 Pl.IV; Desmarest, N. Bib.27 Pl.III, V.

[5] For a full account of the Engine and mode of operation, including its ability to water-wash rags, see Bib.2 Vol.I Chap.VI and Vol.II App.V.

Early History of Paper

Early History of Paper

The name paper derives from the name of the papyrus plant, however, the methods of production are different. Paper is made of pulped cellulose fibres (usually cotton, flax, or wood), whereas papyrus is made of sliced sections of the inner pithy body of the flower stem of the papyrus plant, laid in two layers at right angles, pressed together and dried.

According to tradition, paper was first made in AD 105 by Ts'ai Lun (50?-118), a eunuch attached to the Eastern Han court of the Chinese emperor Ho Ti (r. 89-105). One Chinese record states that he " ...first made paper by pulping fishing nets and rags. Later, he used the the fibres of plants; any which proved sufficiently elastic in tension were used as the raw materials for paper. The raw materials were first well boiled and then beaten into a mash.

They were then stirred into a pulp and spread on a straining frame or basket. When it had formed a thin tissue, the resultant paper was then pressed with heavy weights ", although this may not be correct. It is thought that the origins of Chinese papermaking may lie in the manufacture of bark cloth from the Pacific islands.

The earliest known paper still in existence was made from rags about AD 150, discovered in Turkestan in a ruined tower of the Great Wall of China by Sir Aurel Stein in 1904, however, there is disagreement in China as to whether some material possibly paper can be dated earlier than AD 105.

For approximately 500 years the art of papermaking was confined to China, but in 610 it was introduced into Japan, and into Central Asia about 750. Tradition has it that Chinese papermakers were captured by the Arabs in a battle near Samarkand in AD 751, thus spreading the art westwards.

In 793, there was a factory working in Baghdad, with Chinese workmen introduced by Haroun-el-Raschid. The next known place of production was Damascus, which was to supply Europe for several centuries (particularly with the paper known as Charta Damascena). Paper made its appearance in Egypt about 800 but was not manufactured there until 900, and from there the knowledge was taken to Morocco, and from Morocco to Europe by the Moors.

The table below roughly charts the spread of the manufacture of paper from country to country from thereon by the dates of the earliest known papermills, although it should be noted that the use of paper in a country may predate manufacture by 2-300 years.

Country
Date
Spain (Xativa)
poss 1056

Italy (Genoa)
1255 (poss. 1235 on Ligurian coast)

France (Troyes)
1348
Germany (Nuremburg)

1390
Switzerland (Friebourg)

1411
Belgium

1407
Great Britain (Hertfordshire)

1494
Sweden (Motala)

1532
Hungary

1546
Netherlands (Altmaar & Dortrecht)

1586
Denmark

1635
Norway

1690
Russia (Moscow)

1690
USA (Germanstown, Pa.)
1690/1

History of Paper

The Peculiar History of Paper

Paper is an integrated part of everyday life. Americans use an average of 749 pounds of paper products per individual per year. Over all that's about 187,250,000,000 (187 billion) lbs. of paper for the United States alone. But it hasn't always been this way.

Mankind has always sought to improve ways of communicating and recording thoughts. Early attempts at achieving this involved the use of waxed boards, leaves, bronze, silk, and clay tablets. It wasn't until the invention of paper that information could be recorded and passed on cheaply and in greater quantity.

4,000 B.C. - Ancient Egyptians invented the first substance like paper as we know it. Papyrus was a woven mat of reeds, pounded together into a hard, thin sheet. The word "paper" actually comes from the word "papyrus". Later on in history, the Ancient Greeks used a kind of parchment made from animal skins for the same purpose.

A.D. 105 - Paper as we know it was invented by Ts'ai Lun, a Chinese court official. It is believed that Ts'ai mixed mulberry bark, hemp, and rags with water, mashed it into a pulp, pressed out the liquid and hung the thin mat to dry in the sun. Paper was born and this humble mixture would set off one of mankind's greatest communication revolutions. Literature and the arts flourished in China.

A.D. 610 - Bhuddist monks gradually spread the art to Japan. Papermaking became an essential part of Japanese culture and was used for writing material, fans, garments, dolls, and as an important component of houses. The Japanese were also the first to use the technique of block printing.

A.D. 751 - Samarkland. Chinese and Arab armies clash after decades of peaceful trading. The chinese are defeated and many are taken prisoner. Among the prisoners are paper makers who attempt bargain for their freedom by teaching the Arabs the secrets of paper making.

A.D. 1009 - It took about 400 years for paper to traverse the Arab world to Europe. The first paper mill in Europe was built by the Arabs in Xativa, Spain. Paper making continued here under Moorish rule until 1244 when European armies drove them out. Paper making then began to gradually spread across Christian Europe.

A.D. 1250 - Italy becomes a major paper producer. The Italians vigorously produced the material and exported large amounts of it, dominating the European market for many years.

A.D. 1338 - 1470 - French monks begin producing paper for holy texts. France quickly adopts this new technology and becomes a self-sufficient and competitive paper producer.

A.D. 1411 - The first paper mill in Germany is converted from a flour mill with assistance from the Italians. Germany greatly improved the craft and made the finest papers available. In 1453 Johann Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press. The printing press was the next stage in the communication revolution. Previously, books were owned only by monasteries, royalty, and scholars, very few people could even read. For the first time, the impoverished masses had access to books, and more importantly knowledge. With the availability of books, literacy increased. As literacy increased, the demand for books - and paper increased as we use it.

A.D. 1588 - England begins to make its own paper. A.D. 1680 - The first paper mill in the new world is established by the Spanish in Culhuacan, near the capital of Mexico.

A.D. 1690 - A German immigrant to North America named William Rittenhouse founded the first paper mill in North America near Philadelphia. This is also where the first American paper makers were trained.

A.D. 1719 - Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur suggests that paper could be made from wood in response to a critical shortage of paper making materials. At the time all paper was made from old clothes and rags. There were not enough rags to supply the ever increasing demand for paper. Reaumur was inspired by observing wasps building their nest.

A.D. 1798 - Nicholas Robert invented the paper making machine. His hand-cranked device made paper on a continuous revolving screen. However he was unsuccessful at finding investors. Hearing of Robert's invention from a mutual acquaintance, the Fourdrinier brothers of England create their own paper making machine. Although they did not use their invention, paper making machines bear their name to this day.

A.D. 1850 - Friedrich Gottlob Keller of Germany devises a method of making paper from wood pulp. However the paper is of poor quality.

A.D. 1852 - Hugh Burgess, an Englishman, perfects the use of wood pulp by 'digesting' the wood with chemicals.

A.D. 1867 - C.B. Tilghman, an American chemist, improved the process of making paper from wood by using sulfites during the pulping process.

A.D. 1879 - C.F. Dahl, a Swede finally perfected the use of wood by adding yet another chemical. His 'sulfate' method spread rapidly and reached the United States in about 1907.

A.D. 1883 - Charles Stillwell invented a machine to make brown paper bags for groceries in Philadelphia. Today more than 20 million paper bags are used annually in supermarkets. Many of these are recycled into new bags and boxes.

A.D. 1889 - 1900 - Economical, mass produced paper became a reality. Paper production doubled to about 2.5 million tons per year. Newspapers, books, and magazines flourished. Paper found its way into schools, replacing the writing slate.

100 Billionth BIC Pen

Tuesday, August 30, 2005
The 100 Billionth BIC Ballpoint Pen
Related Entries: Offbeat

Danny: Sorry for the none original content, I ran across this off the wire service and thought it had some interesting facts about the plastic BIC pen we all have converted into a spitwad launcher at somepoint in our life.

PRNewswire —What would cover 40 times the distance from Earth to the moon, lined up end to end? What has been sold throughout the world since 1950, at a rate of 57 per second? You’ve heard of BIC and are doubtless aware that the trademark has featured prominently in schoolbags and handbags, on desktops and coffee tables, for more than 50 years.

You’ve also noticed, in your travels throughout the world, that BIC is synonymous with quality at an affordable price in the United States, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and all over the world.You know all this and more …

But did you know that BIC has just passed the 100-billion mark? That’s 100 billion ballpoint pens sold over the years by the renowned stationery company!

From the classic BIC Cristal introduced more than 50 years ago to the most recent gel ink pens, BIC has successfully expanded its range while remaining loyal to its core philosophy: offering high-quality, affordable products to all … for the enjoyment of trendy teens, hard-working businesspeople, and devoted grandparents around the world!

Colored BallPoint Pens

COLORED BALLPOINT PENS AND REFILLS

Gold BallPoint Pen
1. Lindy:
2. Fisher:
3. Sensa:

Yellow-Gold BallPoint Pen
1. Jell Tek: Rainbows

Silver BallPoint Pen
2. Fisher:
3. Sensa:

Burgundy BallPoint Pen
1. Fisher:
2. Sensa:

Red BallPoint Pens
1. Parker:
2. Bic:
3. Bic: accountant
4. Pentel: RSVP
5. Pilot: BP-S
6. RoseArt:
7. Lindy:
8. 10 Superior Quality:
9. ColorTech:
10. Prisim:
11. 10 Rainbow:
12. Jell Tek: Rainbow
13. Coca-Cola Bear: Pentel
14. Firestick: Pentel
15. Fisher:
16. Sensa:
17. Zebra Jimmy clip

Pink BallPoint Pens
1. ColorTech:
2. Prism:
3. 10 Rainbow:
4. Jell Tek: Rainbow
5. RoseArt:
6. Bic:
7. Pentel: RSVP
8. Pilot:
9. Lindy:
10. Pilot: BP-S Fine
11. Pilot: EasyTouch
12. Hot Color:
13. Coca-Cola Bear: Pentel
14. Firestick:Pentel
15. Zebra Jimmy clip

Orange BallPoint Pens
1. 10 Superior Quality: 10 colored ballpoint pen pack.
2. ColorTech: 20 colored ballpoint pen pack.
3. Prism: 10 colored ballpoint pen pack
4. 10 Rainbow: colored ballpoint pen pack
5. Jell Tek: Rainbow: 7 colored pack
6. Pentel: Firestick 10 colors all in one pen
7. Pentel: Coca-Cola Bear 10 colors all in one pen
8. RoseArt: 6 colored pack
9. Fisher:
10. Sensa:

Yellow BallPoint Pens
1. 10 Superior Quality: 10 colored ballpoint pen pack.
2. ColorTech: 20 colored ballpoint pen pack.
3. Prism: 10 colored ballpoint pen pack
4. 10 Rainbow: colored ballpoint pen pack
5. Jell Tek Rainbow: 7 colored pack
6. Pentel: Firestick 10 colors all in one pen
7. Pentel: Coca-Cola Bear 10 colors all in one pen
8. RoseArt: 6 colored pack
9. A&W: 10 colors in one pen (I’m told yellow is one of those 10 colors)

Purple BallPoint Pens
1. Pilot:
2. Pilot: EasyTouch
3. Hot Colors:
4. Lindy:
5. PaperMate:
6. Pentel: RSVP
7. 10 Superior Quality:
8. ColorTech:
9. Prism:
10. 10 Rainbow:
11. Jell Tek: Rainbow:
12. Coca-Cola Bear: Pentel
13. Firestick: Pentel
14. RoseArt:
15. Fisher:
16. Sensa:
17. Zebra Jimmy clip

Brown BallPoint Pens
1. Lindy: (out of business) brown ballpoint pen ink
2. Pentel: Firestick brown ballpoint pen ink (10 colors in one pen)
3. Pentel: Coca-Cola Bear brown ballpoint pen ink (10 colors in one pen)

Blue BallPoint Pens
1. RoseArt:
2. Pilot: BP-S
3. SuperTech:
4. 10 Rainbow:
5. Prism:
6. ColorTech:
7. 10 Superior Quality:
8. Jell Tek: Rainbow
9. Coca-Cola Bear: Pentel
10. Firestick: Pentel
11. Bic:
12. Pilot:
13. Unison:
14. Pentel: RSVP
15. Hot Color:
16. Parker:
17. Fisher:
18. Sensa:
19. Zebra Jimmy clip

Turquoise BallPoint Pens
1. Coca-Cola Bear: Pentel
2. Firestick: Pentel
3. Bic:
4. Lindy:
5. RoseArt:
6. SuperTech:
7. Pentel: RSVP
8. Hot Color:
9. Fisher:
10. Sensa:

Blue-Green BallPoint Pens
1. Lindy:

Green BallPoint Pens
1. Pentel: Firestick
2. Pentel: Coca-Cola Bear
3. Lindy:
4. Pilot:
5. 10 Superior Quality:
6. ColorTech:
7. Prism:
8. 10 Rainbow:
9. Jell Tek: Rainbow
10. RoseArt:
11. SuperTech:
12. Pentel: RSVP
13. Parker:
14. Fisher:
15. Sensa:
16. Zebra Jimmy clip

Yellow-Green BallPoint Pens
1. Bic:
2. Hot Colors:
3. 10 Superior Quality:
4. Prism:
5. 10 Rainbow:
6. Pentel: Firestick
7. Pentel: Coca-Cola Bear

Archival Inks DIN ISO 12757-2

BALLPOINT PEN OIL BASED ARCHIVAL INKS
DIN-ISO 12757-2 (It took me six years of search the Internet to locate these
ballpoint pen's or refills)

Papermate Stick 2020 Fine Red P27325
DIN standard ink for high standards of performance

Papermate Stick 2020 Fine Grn P27345
DIN standard ink for high standards of performance

Papermate Stick 2020 Med Grn P27645
DIN standard ink for high standards of performance

Papermate 2020 Blue 1.0 tip Stick
DIN standard ink for high standards of performance

Stick Ball Pen Medium Red
forgery-proof paste conforming to ISO 12757-2, line width M

Stick Ball Pen Fine Blue
forgery-proof paste conforming to ISO 12757-2

Stick Ball Pen Medium Black
forgery-proof paste conforming to ISO 12757-2

Stick Ball Pen Fine Black
forgery-proof paste conforming to ISO 12757-2

Stick 2000 Pen Medium Blue
DIN standard ink for high standards of performance

Stick Ball Pen Fine Red
forgery-proof paste conforming to ISO 12757-2

Staedtler Mars Multiple Casings or body designs, 430 Stick Medium,
Line width F, M, indelible ink conforming to ISO 12757-2

Schneider SIMPLY FUNCTIONAL
Giant refill EXPRESS 225 with wear resistant stainless steel tip
Refill EXPRESS 75 with wear resistant stainless steel tip
interchangeable refill, waterproof ink ISO12757.2 A2

Schneider: Express 740 ballpoint refill X20 Giant Refills ISO 12757-2H

Stride Inc Schneider® Express 775 Permanent ink is ISO 12757-2H.
Medium point is 0.6mm. Fine point is 0.4mm.

Stride Inc Schneider® Express 775 Permanent ink is ISO 12757-2H.
07751 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 775 Ballpoint Refills - Fine (BLACK)
07752 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 775 Ballpoint Refills - Fine (RED)
07753 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 775 Ballpoint Refills - Fine (BLUE)
07761 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 775 Ballpoint Refills Medium (BLACK)
07762 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 775 Ballpoint Refills Medium (RED)
07763 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 775 Ballpoint Refills Medium (BLUE)
07764 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 775 Ballpoint Refills Medium (GREEN)

Stride Inc Schneider® Express 785 Permanent ink is ISO 12757-2H.
178601 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 785 Ballpoint Refills - Medium (BLACK)
178603 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 785 Ballpoint Refills - Medium (BLUE)

Stride Inc Schneider® Express 735 Medium point line width is 0.6mm. Fine point line width is 0.4mm. Ink is ISO 12757-2G2 waterproof.
07351 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 735 Ballpoint Refills - Fine (BLACK)
07352 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 735 Ballpoint Refills - Fine (RED)
07353 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 735 Ballpoint Refills - Fine (BLUE)
07361 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 735 Ballpoint Refills - Medium (BLACK)
07362 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 735 Ballpoint Refills - Medium (RED)
07363 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 735 Ballpoint Refills - Medium (BLUE)
07364 - STI - (UPC: ) Schneider Express 735 Ballpoint Refills - Medium (GREEN)

Stdtler Retractable BallPen Tub10 42125S Retractable ballpoint pen
blue forgery-proof paste conf. to ISO 12757-2

ZENO Ball Point Pen
permanent black ink conforming to DIN ISO 12757-2
Solid tip with HAUSER Ceramic Ball writing strokes SF (0.6mm)writing capacity: 0.9g / 1,000M

Parker Pen
Parker makes archival quality refills conform to the ISO standard ISO12757-2
Pelikan Perfect 237 colours: blue, red black With the permanent ink conforming to DIN ISO 12757-2. Widths: F = fine (0.8 mm Ø), M = medium (1 mm Ø), B = broad (1.2 mm Ø) Solid tip of stainless steel, tungsten carbide ball

International Organization for Standardization

NPES Standards Bluebook – May 2005 8

The Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards (CGATS) and the B65 Committee for Safety Standards are the two ANSI-accredited committees developing national standards for the printing, publishing and converting industry. The U.S. Technical Advisory Group (US TAG) to ISO TC 130 provides input into the ISO standards activities relating to the industry. NPES serves as the Secretariat for those committees.

Information on CGATS, B65 and US TAG is contained in this booklet, and further information can be obtained by contacting Mary Abbott, Director of Standards Programs at NPES via Tel: 703-264-7200; Fax: 703-620-0994; or E-mail: mabbott@npes.org.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from some 147 countries, one from each country, consisting of 97 member bodies, 35 correspondent members, and 15 subscriber members. This book provides contact information for ISO member bodies. ISO, a non-governmental organization, was established in 1947. Its mission is to promote the development ofstandardization and related activities in the world with a view toward facilitating the international exchange of goods and services, and to developing cooperation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and economic activity. ISO's work results in international agreements that are published as international standards.

"ISO" is not an acronym, but is a word, derived from the Greek "isos" meaning "equal." This is the root of the prefix "iso-" that occurs in may terms, such as "isometric" (of equal measure or dimensions - Shorter Oxford English Dictionary) and "isonomy" (equality of laws, or of people before the law - ibid). From "equal" to "standard," the line of thinking that led to the choice of "ISO" as the name of the organization is easy to follow. In addition, the name has the advantage of being valid in each of the organization's three official languages, English, French and Russian. The confusion that would arise through the use of an acronym is thus avoided.

The scope of ISO covers standardization in all fields except electrical and electronic engineering standards, which are the responsibility of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Together, ISO and IEC form the specialized system for worldwide standardization: the world's largest non-governmental system for voluntary industrial and technical collaboration at the international level.

The work in the field of information technology is carried out by a joint ISO/IEC technical committee (JTC 1). The results of ISO technical work are published in the form of international standards. There are nearly 10,000 international standards and technical reports covering hundreds of industry fields. ISO work is decentralized, being carried out by 2,850 technical committees, subcommittees and working groups organized and supported by technical secretariats in 35 countries. In these committees, qualified representatives of industry, research institutes, government authorities, consumer bodies and international organizations from all over the world come together as equal partners in the resolution of global standardization problems.

The Central Secretariat in Geneva assists in coordinating ISO operations, administers voting and approval procedures, and publishes the international standards. Developers of international standards are an estimated 30,000 engineers, scientists and administrators. They are nominated by ISO members to participate in the committee meetings and to represent the consolidated views and interests of industry, government, labor and individual consumers in the standards development process. Approximately 500 international organizations are in liaison with ISO technical committees, including nearly all of the UN specialized agencies

BallPoint Pen Archival Inks

Publishing art history!

This is Jerry Stith the founder of an American folk art program called Ball Point Pen Art, BallPoint Pen Art or Ballpointpenart. I’m a ballpoint pen artist that has spent the past 39 years drawing, archiving, documenting and researching the ballpoint pen and its virtues. Art became a love of mine at the age of five or fifty-two years ago!

I’ve worked with clay, glass, metals, wire, wood, finger- oil- watercolor- temper- acrylic paints, pastels, oil pastels, charcoal, graphite, pencils, enamels, chalks, inks, conte’ sticks, crayons, wax, video, software, TV., camera’s, colored pencils and computers as an artist in order to express myself as an artist.

I came to the Internet over seven years ago to find that there were no ballpoint pen art or drawing programs, organizations or related forums published. I thought that was rather strange because a ballpoint pen is the most sold, used and popular of all writing or drawing instruments in history. There were no Pen and Ink major sites as well which is really strange because that art medium was around for over four thousand years!

Hundreds of billions of ballpoint pens have been sold throughout this world because they work the best at what do! For some reason no other person chose to present a program that supported this amazing pen system. Therefore, I’ve spent over ten thousand hours researching, developing, archiving or publishing materials related to this world class instrument. Today, there are over one billion people registered with this WWW and I’m the most published ballpoint pen artist of them all.

In last seven years I’ve presented more facts, ink test results, ISO or colored pens than all others on the Internet. This list clearly demonstrates what a ballpoint pen can do or did throughout history.

1. Most sold pen system in history!
2. Most sold art medium in history!
3. Best carbon copy making tool in history!
4. Longest flowing line in history!
5. Subtlest camera-ready half tone art lines in history!
6. Only pen system that can draw underwater in history!
7. Only pen system that can draw upside down in history!
8. Only pen system that can draw in space throughout history! (Gravity-free void)
9. Only pen system that works in the freezing cold in history! (-50F)
10. Darkest full colored pen inks in history!
11. Only oil-based pen inks in history!
12. Only pen in history that draws over grease!
13. Only pen system in history to work in extreme heat (+250F) of Space!
14. Ballpoint pen tips are the strongest in history!
15. A ballpoint pen's ink reserve is the largest in history!
16. Greatest carbon copy device or make!

There are many other ballpoint pen artists around the world that have not yet surfaced or come to our attention. However, when they do my network or ballpoint pen art forum will be here to greet them. Forty-three artists from around the world have been published worldwide to show what can be done with a ballpoint pen.

These are some other things I have published.

1. Most ballpoint pen art sites or slide shows
2. Most multi-colored oil based inks
3. Most style or techniques
4. Most artists
5. Most mono colored drawings
6. Most bold line drawings or sketches
7. Most half tone drawings
8. Largest Pen and Ink site

This information is “News Worthy” and “Art history in the making”! I’m very pleased, honored, grateful or thankful to present what the greatest pen system in history can do. Hopefully those out there can appreciate what’s being presented.

Jerry Sith