A pen () is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, typically paper, for writing or drawing.Pen . Merriam-Webster Dictionary Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity that had to be periodically recharged by dipping the tip of the pen into an inkwell. Today, such pens find only a small number of specialized uses, such as in illustration and calligraphy. Reed pens, quill pens and dip pens, which were used for writing, have been replaced by ballpoint pens, rollerball pens, fountain pens and felt or ceramic tip pens."pen." Word Histories and Mysteries. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Credo Reference. Web. 13 September 2007.
Ruling pens, which were used for technical drawing and cartography, have been replaced by technical pens such as the Rapidograph. All of these modern pens contain internal ink reservoirs, such that they do not need to be dipped in ink while writing.
History
Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens from the Juncus maritimus or sea rush.Egyptian reed pen Retrieved March 16, 2007. In his book A History of Writing, Steven Roger Fischer suggests, on the basis of finds at Saqqara, that the reed pen might well have been used for writing on parchment as long ago as the First Dynasty, or around 3000 BC. Reed pens continued to be used until the Middle Ages, but were slowly replaced by quills from about the 7th century. The reed pen, made from reed or bamboo, is still used in some parts of Pakistan by young students and is used to write on small wooden boards.
The reed pen survived until papyrus was replaced as a writing surface by animal skins, vellum and parchment. The smoother surface of skin allowed finer, smaller writing with a quill pen, derived from the flight feather."pen." The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide. Abington: Helicon, 2010. Credo Reference. Web. 17 September 2012 The quill pen was used in Qumran, Judea to write some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date back to around 100 BC. The scrolls were written in Hebrew dialects with bird feathers or quills. There is a specific reference to quills in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville in the 7th century.The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville , Cambridge Catalogue Retrieved March 11, 2007. Quill pens were still widely used in the eighteenth century, and were used to write and sign the Constitution of the United States in 1787.
Metal pens were produced in the Roman Empire and examples have been found at several sites, most notably Pompeii, where specimens now kept in the Naples Archaeological Museum demonstrate their use before the eruption of 79 CE.Roe, G. E. (1993). An Engineer’s View of Writing Instruments: Part 1. Journal of the Writing Equipment Society, 37, p. 42.Lacroux, J.-P. & Van Cleem, L. (1988). La mémoire des Sergent-Major. Ramsay-Quintette, p. 37 Another example, a Romano‑British copper‑alloy pen with a conical body and a slit forming two tines, is held in the British Museum. There is a reference to 'a silver pen to carry ink in', in Samuel Pepys' diary for August 1663.'This evening came a letter about business from Mr Coventry, and with it a silver pen to carry inke in, which is very necessary.' Diary of Samuel Pepys, 5 August 1663:http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1663/08/ 'New invented' metal pens are advertised in The Times in 1792. A metal pen point was patented in 1803, but the patent was not commercially exploited. A patent for the manufacture of metal pens was advertised for sale by Bryan Donkin in 1811.The Evolution of the Pen by James Lawyer on pitchmanpens.com. 14 Jun 2019 John Mitchell of Birmingham started to mass-produce pens with metal nibs in 1822, and after that, the quality of steel nibs improved enough so that dip pens with metal nibs came into general use.
The earliest historical record of a pen with a reservoir dates back to the 10th century AD. In 953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib. This pen may have been a fountain pen, but its mechanism remains unknown, and only one record mentioning it has been found. A later reservoir pen was developed in 1636. In his Deliciae Physico-Mathematicae (1636), German inventor Daniel Schwenter described a pen made from two quills. One quill served as a reservoir for ink inside the other quill. The ink was sealed inside the quill with cork. Ink was squeezed through a small hole to the writing point. In 1809, Bartholomew Folsch received a patent in England for a pen with an ink reservoir.
A student in Paris, Romanian Petrache Poenaru invented a fountain pen that used a quill as an ink reservoir. The French Government patented this in May 1827.Pierre Poyenar, "Plume sans fin portative, s'alimentant d'encre d'elle même" Patent FR-Poenaru, Application 3208. File: http://www.fountainpen.it/File:Patent-FR-Poenaru.pdf Fountain pen patents and production then increased in the 1850s.
The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issued on October 30, 1888, to John J. Loud.GB Patent No. 15630, October 30, 1888 In 1938, László Bíró, a Hungarian newspaper editor, with the help of his brother George, a chemist, began to design new types of pens, including one with a tiny ball in its tip that was free to turn in a socket. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper. Bíró filed a British patent on June 15, 1938. In 1940, the Bíró brothers and a friend, Juan Jorge Meyne, moved to Argentina, fleeing Nazi Germany. On June 17, 1943, they filed for another patent. They formed "Bíró Pens of Argentina", and by the summer of 1943, the first commercial models were available.The Ballpoint Pen , Quido Magazin. Retrieved March 11, 2007. Erasable ballpoint pens were introduced by Paper Mate in 1979, when the Erasermate was put on the market.
Slavoljub Eduard Penkala, a Croatian engineer and inventor, became renowned for further development of the mechanical pencil (1906) – then called an "automatic pencil" – and the first solid-ink fountain pen (1907). Collaborating with the Croatian entrepreneur Edmund Moster, he started the Penkala-Moster Company and built a pen-and-pencil factory that was one of the biggest in the world at the time. This company, now called TOZ-Penkala, still exists today. "TOZ" stands for "", meaning "Zagreb Pencil Factory".
In the 1960s, the fiber- or felt-tipped pen was invented by Yukio Horie of the Tokyo Stationery Company, Japan., About Inventors site. Retrieved March 11, 2007. Paper Mate's Flair was among the first felt-tip pens to hit the U.S. market in the 1960s, and it has been the leader ever since. Marker pens and highlighters, both similar to felt pens, have become popular in recent times.
Rollerball pens were introduced in the early 1970s. They use a mobile ball and liquid ink to produce a smoother line. Technological advances during the late 1980s and early 1990s have improved the roller ball's overall performance. A porous point pen contains a point made of some porous material such as felt or ceramic. A high quality drafting pen will usually have a ceramic tip, since this wears well and does not broaden when pressure is applied while writing.
Although the invention of the typewriter and personal computer with the keyboard input method has offered another way to write, the pen is still the main means of writing. Many people like to use expensive types and brands of pens, including fountain pens, and these are sometimes regarded as a status symbol.Guilfoil, John M. (August 17, 2008) The power of the pen . Boston.com
Types
Modern Pens commonly used today can be categorized based on the mechanism of the writing tip and the type of ink:
A ballpoint pen dispenses a viscous oil-based ink by means of a small hard sphere, or ball, which rolls over the surface being written on. The ball is held captive in a socket at the tip of the pen with one half exposed and the other half immersed in ink from the pen's reservoir. When the ball rotates, it transfers the ink—which wets the ball—from the reservoir to the external surface. The ball is typically under a millimeter in diameter and made of brass, steel, or tungsten carbide. The ink, due to its high viscosity, does not permeate through paper and does not leave the tip of the pen by capillary action. As such, a bare minimum amount of ink is dispensed, with the result that the writing dries almost instantly and ink lasts longer than it does in other types of pen. Ballpoint pens are reliable, versatile and robust, and are available for a very wide range of prices. They have replaced fountain pens as the most common tool for everyday writing. A gel pen works similarly to a ballpoint pen, in that it dispenses ink using a rolling ball held in the writing tip. However, unlike oil-based ballpoint pen ink, gel pen ink consists of a water-based gel that has a pigment suspended in it. Because the ink is thick and opaque, it shows up more clearly on dark or slick surfaces than the typical inks used in ballpoint or felt tip pens. Gel pens can be used for many types of writing and illustration. Since the gel medium eliminates the constraints of a soluble dye, many new colors are made possible, as well as some special types of ink; gel pens are available in a wide range of vibrant or saturated colors, in pastel colors, in neon colors, in metallic colors, in glitter inks, in glow-in-the-dark ink, and so on.
A rollerball pen is a pen that dispenses a water-based ink through a ball tip similar to that of a ballpoint pen. As such, gel pens might be considered a subcategory of rollerball pens; however, due to the widespread knowledge and use of the term 'gel pen', 'rollerball' is in practice typically reserved for pens which use liquid ink. The lower viscosity of rollerball ink compared to oil-based ballpoint pen ink has several effects on the pen's performance. Since the ink flows more easily and is more easily absorbed into paper, more ink is dispensed in general. This changes the writing experience by lubricating the motion of the tip over the paper. It also results in a solid and uninterrupted line, since the diffusion of the ink through the paper fills small gaps that might otherwise be left by the ball point. Compared to ballpoint pens, which dispense a smaller amount of more viscous ink, the writing by a rollerball pen takes longer to dry on the page and can seep through thin paper such as to become visible on the opposite side. When the tip of a rollerball pen is held against paper, ink leaves the tip continually by capillary action in much the same way as would occur with a fountain pen. This can lead to ink blots or smears. The rollerball pen was initially designed to combine the convenience of a ballpoint pen with the smooth "wet ink" effect of a fountain pen. Refillable rollerball pens have recently become available; these generally use cartridges of fountain pen ink.