When you think of ballpoint pens, your mind probably goes to office supplies, not great works of art. But even the lowliest and most ubiquitous of writing utensils can make breathtaking masterpieces ...

These pens go by many names around the world, but they're known mainly by two monikers. One is "ballpoint pen," which describes the principle behind it, and "biro," which is the name of the man who ...

It’s a debate as old as time and has had the world’s finest intellectuals at war for years – what is better to write with, fountain pens or ballpoint pens? Okay, maybe it’s not that serious, but if ...

The first whispers came in the summer of 1944: a Hungarian inventor living in Argentina had created something sensational. Practical fountain pens with internal ink cartridges had been in use for ...

Fountain pens were a stylish statement but messy and impractical. Their replacement was a stroke of design genius perfectly in time for the era of mass production. On 29 October 1945, the New York ...

At its most basic, a pen has to do just one thing, but there are so many reasons to choose one over another. Does it glide along the page, or does it drag? Does the ink flow in a smooth line, or is it ...

The idea of perforating the caps of pens appears to have started in the United Kingdom, where a new safety standard was adopted in 1990 (BS 7272). Between 1970 and 1984, nine children in the United ...