Buyers Guide > History of the Pen
Humans have been writing and making marks as far back as the caveman. It was the ancient Egyptians who were the first people to write on paper. In around 3000 BC the scribes from ancient Egypt used reed brushes to write on papyrus scrolls. The reed pen was used up until the Middle Ages, although the quill pen had begun to replace it as early as the 7th century.
The quill pen is made from a trimmed goose feather whose shaft has been cut into a good writing point. Trimming the quill was a real skill, and a talented scribe could create some very nice calligraphic effects. The quill pen was first used in Qumran, Judea to write some of the dead see scrolls, and was introduced into Europe in 700AD. It was also used to write and sign the constitution of the United Stated of America in 1787.
The quill pen was replaced by the metal dip pen in the early 19th century. The metal dip pen had a steel nib with various holes to hold the ink. The nib was attached to a wooden handle, and could be manufactured quite cheaply. John Mitchell of Birmingham started to mass produce the metal dip pen in 1822, and by 1850 they came into generalised use. The dip pen had to be constantly dipped in ink, and it wasn’t long before the people demanded a pen which contained a reservoir of ink (a fountain pen). Inventors came up with various forms of the reservoir pen, dating back to the first half of the 19th century. The first few attempts at a reservoir pen were pretty unsuccessful because the ink flow was very inconsistent.
The problem with the early fountain pens was the feed system, which regulated the flow of ink to the nib. In the 1870’s Lewis Edson Waterman invented his ‘Three Fissue Feed’ system which used an intake of air to control the ink flow. This led to the widespread use of a reliable fountain pen, and made the portable pen a reality. In 1894 Parker Pens invented the lucky curve feed system which drained the ink back into the reservoir when not in use.
These early fountain pens were called ‘eyedropper pens’ because you had to drip in a day’s supply of ink using the dropper provided. They were prone to leakage, so a new version was introduced by Waterman called the ‘Safety Pen’. The sac filler system soon followed which was much faster and cleaner to fill. In the 1930s the piston filler was introduced by Pelikan and proved immensely popular because it allowed greater ink capacity. All these developments form the basis of the modern day fountain pen.
Now that fountain pens were reliable, people demanded that they were also a fashionable item. In the early days of pen manufacturing, they were made from hard rubber which was available in limited colours and mainly black. In 1924 Sheaffer used celluloid (made from plant fibers) for the first time which meant pens could be made in a large range of exciting colours. Perhaps the last greatest advance in fountain pen technology was by Waterman, who in 1936 invented the disposable cartridge pen.
The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issues in 1888. It wasn’t until Laszlo Biro’s new patent in 1943 though that the ballpoint pen went into commercial production. The ballpen uses a tiny ball that picks up oil based ink as the pen moves along the paper. In the 1960s the felt tip pen was invented by Yukio Horie from Japan. The rollerball pen was finally introduced in the early 1980s, operating like a ballpen but using liquid ink for smoother ink flow.
