A Pen'ny for your thoughts

For many, this is a debatable statement. But either in agreement or discord, the pen emerges victorious. From conveying thoughts and feelings to grocery lists, the pen has a story of its own that has much in common to that of man - ‘evolution’.

The history of writing instruments by which humans have recorded and conveyed thoughts, feelings and even grocery lists, is the history of civilization itself. This is how we know the story of us, by the drawings, signs and words we have recorded. The cave man's first inventions were the hunting club and the handy sharpened-stone, the all-purpose skinning and killing tool. The latter was adapted into the first writing instrument. Early historical records also convey that, at the dawn of civilisation man's earliest writing may have been by using his finger as a pen with the 'ink' being plant juices or even blood. The first stage of progress in writing was around 4,000 BC when man scratched the surface of moist clay tablets with a bronze or bone tool. The Romans then developed this form of writing to scribble into thin sheets of wax, which could be melted and re-used. Who says recycling is a modern concept?

The pioneers
The earliest means of writing that approached pen and paper, as we know them today was developed by the Greeks. They employed a writing stylus, made of metal, bone or ivory, to place marks upon wax-coated tablets. The tablets made in hinged pairs, closed to protect the scribe's notes.

However as the dictionary definition of a Pen is 'a tool for writing or drawing with a coloured fluid such as ink' these scribing tools have to be excluded and the earliest ancestor of the pen was probably the brush made from camel or rat hair, used by the Chinese in the first millennium BC. About the same period, 500 - 300 BC, the early Egyptians employed thick Calamus or Bamboo reeds with split, frayed or carved ends. The Romans created a reed-pen perfect for parchment and ink, by converting bamboo stems into a primitive form of fountain pen.

The feather touch
After the fall of the Roman Empire, monks throughout Europe needed to produce copies of the Christian Church's religious documents. Printing had not been invented and the monks no longer had access to reeds of the right quality. This led to the use of the quill of a molted Goose feather. The hollow quill held the ink and the split end was the nib, writing pressure giving thick and thin strokes. Introduced in 700 A. D, the quill pen dominated as a writing instrument for the longest period in history. Goose feathers were most common; swan feathers were of a premium grade being scarcer and more expensive and crow feathers scored for making fine lines. These pens were of such importance that it is said that geese were specially bred by the US President Thomas Jefferson to supply his own vast need for quills.

By 1850 quill pen usage was fading owing to the popularity of free public education that called for something more convenient and easier. Quill pens used to last only a week and had a lengthy preparation time. They held little ink so needed re-dipping frequently after every few words.

Eventually with the further progress of civilization, there were better inks and paper, and man's inventive nature drove him to improving the writing instrument, leading to the development of the modern fountain pen.

The Fountain springs forth
Though necessity may be the mother of invention, perhaps it is frustration that fuels the fire; or so it seemed for Lewis Waterman. In 1883, Lewis Waterman was an insurance broker in New York City, getting ready to sign one of his hottest contracts. In honor of the occasion, Lewis Waterman bought a new fountain pen that he considered far more stylish than a cumbersome dip pen and ink well. With the contract on the table and the pen in the client’s hand, the pen refused to write, and actually leaked onto the precious document. Horrified, Lewis Waterman raced back to his office for another contract, but a competing broker had closed the deal.

Determined to never again suffer such humiliation, Waterman began to make fountain pens in his brother’s workshop. He used the capillary principle, which allowed air to induce a steady and even flow of ink. He christened his pen "the Regular," decorated it with wood accents, and obtained a patent for it in 1884. In his first year of operation, Waterman sold his hand-made pens out of the back of a cigar shop. He guaranteed the pens for five years and advertised in a trendy magazine, The Review of Review. The orders filtered in. The Treaty of Versailles was signed using a solid gold Waterman pen, a far cry from the day Lewis Waterman lost his important contract.

The Parker story started with George Safford Parker, a school teacher from Janesville, WI, who had a sideline as an agent for John Holland fountain pens that offered anything but a pleasant writing experience. Frustrated with the unreliability of the writing instruments then available to his students, he decided he could make a better pen himself. And he did. The rest they say is history.

The turning ‘point’

That gave way to the ballpoint age. 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 and created another chapter in the evolution of the pen.

A few years down the line, the pen will evolve into something new. And so will its story.