WEBVTT - Ballpoint pens? Heck yes, ballpoint pens! 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.520 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:16.840 There's Charles w Chuck Bryan. It's just the two of 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.080 us today, and both of us are totally astounded that 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.840 you pressed play on an episode called how ballpoint pens 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.120 work or something to that effect. Yeah, And when I 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:29.320 found this, I was like no, But then I started 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.800 reading it and it was far more interesting than I thought. 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:35.440 I love ones like this where you just like, this 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.800 sounds so dull that I want to actually pop my 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.240 eyes out with it by a ballpoint pen, not listen 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:46.240 to anything, But now it turns out to be interesting. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.200 Like Grass. Remember our episode on Grass you could forget 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.840 the great debate over whether you should flood your lawn 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:57.400 with a quarter inch of water or not? Yeah? Answer, 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:02.880 you should not? Uh so, Chuck? Yes, to begin, I 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:07.640 have a question for you. Have you ever seen a 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:12.480 ballpoint pen? They have them? That's become one of your great, 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:18.440 long time running jokes. I don't know what you mean, Chuck. 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:23.680 Have you ever breathed air? Ah? Yeah? I mean I 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:30.319 was using my black Bick ballpoint pen. Yeah, I remember today. 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:34.680 I even remember because blue pins are for dopes. You, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.160 my friend, are out of your mind. You like blue pins. 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.039 Blue pen is the only way to go, my friends. 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.240 And as a matter of fact, the pilot G two 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:51.280 point seven millimeter pen ink gel pen in blue is 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:53.640 the only way to go. That's my favorite pen on 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.120 the entire planet. Well, I will say today I'm using 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:02.280 the standard Bick black. Uh, like the one that in 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.480 elementary school you could take a part and make into 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.520 a great spitball shooter. Oh yeah, that was. It was 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.440 an off off label prescription for that. Yeah, it's the 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.360 clear one, not the white plastic case, but the clear 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.080 case or the you know clear pinbody. But h and 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.200 I do love that pen. But I know the pin 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.080 that you speak of, and I do love it because 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.000 I love there's nothing like a pen that just takes 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.720 to the paper perfectly. Yeah, it's immagical. That's what gel 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.240 ink pens do their beautiful things. And the thing I 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.720 like the reason I like blue and it comes in black. 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:39.640 If that's your thing, you know, I'm not gonna hate 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.359 on it. But if when you underline something printed out 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.400 like our notes, um, and then you go back over 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.520 it with highlighter, like I do, the blue really stands out. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.640 The black just kind of like blends in with the 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.880 printed out words. All right, Well, here's what I used 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.440 to do is and you probably remember the days when 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.760 I would be looking at my highlighted text with red 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:06.280 ink things written down because the red really popped. But 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.079 then I just sort of got tired of it, and 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.880 I'm just a black ink guy. You're you're sticking and picking. 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.200 I'm sticking and picking. You're picking and sticking. That's what 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.760 I mean. Uh So, should we talk about writing over 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:25.799 the years. We should, as anyone listening still if you are, 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:28.079 we're going to continue on just in case. So let's 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.560 let's start about writing over there, because this is pretty interesting, right, yeah, 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.280 tuk tuk. That's where we should start, tuk took. And 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.360 we should shout out to Mary Bellis, who wrote a 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.720 thought co little um brief thing called A Brief History 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:41.840 of Writing that kind of ran down some points that 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.080 will cover. But she points out the tuk Tuk. She 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.320 doesn't call him tuk took, but that's really what she means. 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.080 That's because I've trademarked it. Sure, um tuk Tuk started 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.440 writing with basically sharpened stones by carving things on the 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.560 size of cave walls. Easy PC. That was probably our 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.320 first writing in pliment. Yeah, like no ink by this point. 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:06.400 Um as with the Greeks when they started writing, they 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.600 had a little stylus made of bone or metal or 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:13.160 something and they would mark things on wax coated tablets 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.400 and it would take always. It seems like it's the 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:21.239 Chinese who come up with the great innovations in ancient 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.880 times and still who knows. We're not allowed to read 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:31.480 Chinese websites though, No, but they invented and really crafted 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:36.680 Indian ink, Yes, which is pretty clever little mixture its 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:42.240 soot um, specifically from pine smoke. Vellas says, it's pretty 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.479 pretty on the nose if you ask me. And then 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:49.000 some oil, lamp oil, and then you take a donkey 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.520 and squeeze gelatine from it, which I'm wondering, like, does 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.440 that mean that you have to kill the poor donkey 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.680 or can you just come up and milk of gelatine? 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.400 I think the donkey loves that well, I wonder because 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:04.880 I think gelatine is actually made from hooves. I think 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.520 you're right, And usually if you start making things from hooves, 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.800 the animal, the hoof used to be attached to is 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.120 no longer with us. So it's a sad way to 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.520 make ink. But that's how they made ink for thousands 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.600 of years. Actually, yeah, there was a philosopher, Chinese philosopher 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:26.640 name Tien Chew and his inc. Was the one that 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.760 that really sort of became the go to inc for 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:34.320 for many, many many years. Yes, he called it chewink. 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:42.000 We called it what chewink? Really? No, No, I'm making 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.479 stuff up at this point. I can't tell he had 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.080 the he had the idea. This was I think back 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:52.760 around BC that he started mixing natural dyes and um 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.680 things from berries, different kinds of plants um to make 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.240 different colored ink. So ink went from just black two colored, 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.960 and as a result, um they started attaching different meanings 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.240 to these different colored inks. He admitted the four color pin. 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.960 But oh yeah, I remember that. Oh I forgot all 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.240 about us. Didn't they go up to like eight colors too? Yeah, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.680 they got They got pretty out of hand. And the 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.719 thing that stunk about those is they never wrote really well, no, 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.120 they definitely didn't. There. The gimmick was more that you 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.839 could write at all in different colors in the same pin. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.159 You know, they were for elementary school kids. So one 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.280 of the things that um that happened as the writing implements. 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.240 And I hadn't really realized this, but as our writing 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:40.359 implements became more and more refined, just better and better. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:43.080 And part of that was not just like the implement 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.159 but also the types of ink way were using and 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.839 how they were delivered, and then the paper whatever substance 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.840 we were putting them onto. These the original things which 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.960 started out is basically drawings on cave walls, got more 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.680 and more um refined, and actually it grew more and 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:05.640 more abstract, and they became our system of alphabets, letters 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.159 and at first the so from what we from what 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.000 we know, the first alphabet ever created was created in 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:15.120 ancient Greece, classical Grease, by a scholar named Cadmus. And 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:20.280 all of the um the original written alphabets that were invented, 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.560 we're all upper case. Nothing about upper case. Everybody's just 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:28.000 shouting to one another constantly. Right, And I didn't know this, 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.640 but there's another word for upper case and lower case. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:36.200 It's magiscule and minuscule, or the actual technical terms for 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.240 upper case and lower case. And the story goes that 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.240 the reason they're called upper case and lower case. Is 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:47.040 that in the days of um UH type set printing, 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:52.840 you would keep your your magiscule letters in a different drawer, 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:54.960 usually higher up out of reach, because you didn't use 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.680 them as often than you would the minuscule letters. You 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.080 keep those in the lower case. And that's where the 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.680 term comes from from what I understand. Very interesting. I 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.120 thought so too. Maybe the fact of the podcast, I 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.560 don't know, we'll have to just keep going and find out, 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.680 has nothing to do with pens. The Romans actually created 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:15.480 a reed pen, and this makes a lot of sense. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:19.360 It would use stems from marsh grasses, like bamboo type 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.680 of stuff, which made perfect sense because it's hollowed out already. 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.720 All you do is sharpened the end of it, uh, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.040 you know, to come to a point like a little nib. 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.560 Then put the ink in there, and you've got a 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:37.640 very rudimentary pen, which you know worked pretty well for them. Yeah, 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.160 apparently these things were so tight that you had to 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.800 like squeeze them to squeeze the ink out of the end, 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.559 so it wouldn't just like dribble out constantly, although I'm 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.160 sure it's still would. It's not a perfect system. It 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:52.319 isn't a perfect system, and there's there's still room for improvement. Um. 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:59.439 And that came in seven hundred CE, right about or 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.720 so years go, when somebody thought to use a quill 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.080 from a bird feathered animal. Yeah, and that was a 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.720 big one. It says in here that the longest period 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.120 in history as far as writing implements goes, was the 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.000 quill pen. Yeah, pretty amazing a thousand years. Yeah, I 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.040 hadn't really thought about that. Yeah, it was the best 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:23.320 They basically got to the quill pen, or like until 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.599 some somebody invince a ballpoint pin. This bird feather is 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.480 about the best thing going. Yeah, And I mean they 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.719 used so you could use a bird feather as a 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.400 quill pen for about a week before it would get 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.520 gummed up and you'd have to have another one. And 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:44.120 they actually um figured out that the bird from a 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.680 or the feather from a living bird plucked in the 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:52.600 spring provided the optimal quills. And even more than that, 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.760 depending on whether you're right handed or left handed, you 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.640 wanted to pluck the feather from the left or the 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.600 right wing. Yeah, Because if you're right handed and you're 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.120 writing with a quill from a right wing, then that 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.800 that guy's gonna be tickling your nose every time. And 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.520 it may be fun for a little while, but what 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:15.560 you really want is a feather from the left wing 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.080 and that way, if you're right handed in that way, 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.600 that feather swoops to the outside of your face. Yes, 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:26.920 it would have having the wrong the wrong feather quill 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.640 would have like just been another excuse not to balance 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.000 your checkbook, you know. Yeah, and these things lasted for 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.400 about a week. Um, you needed a special knife to 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.280 sharpen them. Uh, took a long time to to get 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.760 it kind of prepared. And they were, you know, like 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.000 I said, about a week old and they were done, 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.200 so they were fairly disposable, but they still held down 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.839 the fort until early fountain pins for over a thousand years. Yeah, 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.280 and fountain pens are their own thing. They are, um, 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.440 surely you know or remember from time to time, I'm 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.600 will get like a letter from somebody who's like a 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.280 fountain pen enthusiast. It's like a whole thing. You remember that, Yeah, 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.080 Or you get a graduation gift that's like a nice 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.120 fountain pen and you're like, jeez, really, but I'm saying 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.120 you and I have gotten like letters from face to 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.800 like write these beautiful letters out and fountain pens. I 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.000 think at least one of one person has sent us 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.400 an actual, like really good fountain pen um. And I've 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.320 never caught the bug, but there there is, like there's 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:31.520 a subculture people out there are so into fountain pens 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.840 that they expressed that by writing letters to one another 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.959 using fountain pens. Obviously it's really cool. I mean I 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.800 have never like you've never taken to it. I'm a 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:47.319 ballpoint man through and through, but I get it. You know, sure, 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.520 it's it's cool, it's classy. You're not gonna yuck their yum. 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.960 In other words, no, And I don't have very nice 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.719 penmanship anymore either, so it would just, you know, I 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.120 kind of tie those things together, Like if you're writing 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.520 a letter in a fountain pen, you don't write like 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.960 I do because that would just be dumb. Right, I 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.480 write like a serial killer in an insane asylum holding 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:11.400 a cran with a fist. That's how I write. Uh. 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:13.440 Should we take a break and jump over to the 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:38.040 ball point Yeah, let's all right. So a ballpoint pen. 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.600 You say that word over and over and it's you 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.480 never really stopped to think about what that means. But 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.120 in the end of that little pen and it's impossible 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.040 to not just sort of obsess over this after you've 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.880 maybe listened to this episode or or researched it like 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.280 we did. But when I was writing today, I was 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.679 just constantly thinking about that little ball. You know, it 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:05.080 haunted you. How undersung it is? Okay, I see, I 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.120 thought you were just like you. You felt like it 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.000 was eavesdropping on you. You could feel it like king 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.720 at the atoms in your hand or something weird like that. No, 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.680 just thinking of the simple genius of this invention. It's 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.680 you know, at the end of that pin is a little, small, 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.480 tiny rotating ball A lot of times just steel or brass, 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:28.840 maybe tungsten carbide. And it was revolutionary and completely different 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.120 than anything that came before it. Yeah, and and to 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.040 go back to the fountain pen to kind of put 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.560 a button on that, Like, Yes, fountain pens are pretty awesome, 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.600 and when you master using a fountain pen um you 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.520 probably do like it. But if you're just an average 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.880 mom who's like, look, just give me a writing implement. 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:48.800 I want to write something down and not getting any 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.600 jollies from this looking at it. From that perspective, the 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.760 ballpoint pen is an improvement in a number of ways 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.200 over the fountain pen, and specifically, one of the ways 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.440 that it's an improved it is that you can use 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:07.280 it up in an airplane much more easily. Yeah, the ink, 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.559 there were problems with the ink at high altitudes and 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.640 fountain pens, yeah, and just problems with the ink at 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.760 any altitude. You know, it doesn't flow super evenly. I 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:18.400 mean if you have a really nice pin and know 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:20.960 how to use it, but like a cheap fountain pen, 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.280 it was no good. The ink is very slow to 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.960 dry and smudgy. It uh would clogg a lot. And 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.400 once it's kind of clogged and gummy, then either have 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.080 to be really good at cleaning it or it's just junk. Yes, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.440 so um. One of the ways that the ink comes 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.360 out of a fountain pen is through air, through capillary 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.760 action and air. And so since you have air in 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.280 a fountain pen, that means that since ink dries in 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:49.240 the presence of air, which is what you want when 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.280 it touches the paper, it will also dry inside the pen, 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.560 which is how it gets gunked up like you were 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.160 talking about. But in an airplane too. When you take 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.080 a fountain pen that's been down on on planet Earth 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.080 for a while, that air that's in the fountain pen 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.240 gets trapped in the air. So when you take it 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.080 up in an airplane in a pressurized cabin, it's still 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.480 like the cabin's pressurized, but it's still much less pressure 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:16.280 than it is at sea level, which is where the 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.760 pen just was. And because of this, the higher pressure 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.240 air inside the pen wants to move to where it's 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:27.000 lower pressure. Higher pressure always moves to lower pressure, I think, 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.600 unless there's some Rando exception. I'm not thinking of that 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.600 we're going to get a thousand emails about. But like 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.280 high pressure stuff wants to move to low pressure stuff, 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:39.160 So that high pressure air tries to move out of 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.400 the fountain pen, and as it does, it pushes the 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.720 ink out. So fountain pens tend to flood on planes, 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.720 which again is not that big of a problem these days, 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.320 but if this was the nineteen forties and you were 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:52.680 a pilot for the Royal Air Force or a navigator 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.680 or something, it was a big problem. Yeah, for sure, 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.480 which is one of the reasons why ball points came along. Yeah, 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.800 and the the ballpoint idea had been around since the 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:07.600 eighteen hundreds, but it never really took like, they can 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.000 never figure out how to make a good working pen 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:13.520 that actually was able to go to market. It was 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.280 I didn't see that. It was it's been around since 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.000 the eight hundred times that the original idea for the 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.320 ballpoint pin. Yeah, but they could never fashion a pin 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.840 that really worked well. Yeah. I would think also it 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:27.160 would really depend on the technology of the ink, for sure. 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.640 I think that was a big part of it. But 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.920 it would take a journalist to Hungarian journalists named Laslow 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:37.200 b r Oh to take a tour of a newspaper 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.240 facility when he was like, wait a minute, these newspapers 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.360 are coming out and they're being stacked on each other 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.520 right after printing, and it's not smudging around like my 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.120 my dumb old India Inc. Does. And he said, why 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.480 don't we use that kind of ink put it in 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.840 a pen? And not only that, why don't we take 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.320 a pen that has a little time metal ball at 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.080 the end that rotates. It also seals that tube so 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.800 the ink doesn't come flowing out. It does double duty, 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.159 double duty. And then the rotation is what draws that 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.199 inc out that in a little gravitational pull and I 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.439 think I might be onto something here. Yeah, and he 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:22.439 definitely was. And this this article hilariously says that he 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.040 vowed to make a pen that used fast drying ink 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.000 because at the time that was a real problem. Like 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.320 the the ink that you had in a pen to 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.520 keep it from drying out in the pen had to 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.080 be super watery. Right, So the idea of making a 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.160 pen that wasn't a fountain pen that used fast drying ink, 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.560 that was it was quite a vow. I'm sure the 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.160 person giving him the newspaper tours like, are you sure. Yeah, 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.080 he said, I'm I just vowed it, I'm gonna do it. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.600 So he did. He got together. Luckily I had a brother, George, 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:57.440 who was a chemist. Yeah, that that was very helpful. Um. 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:04.080 In June three he got that patent with a European 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:08.000 Patent Office made bureau pens. It was the first ballpoint 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.520 pen to be brought to market. And the British government 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.400 you were talking about the Air Force, their Royal Air 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.160 Force went crazy for it. So they just bought the rights. Okay, 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.520 So I couldn't find that anywhere else. Really, I saw 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.600 that the Royal Air Force ordered thirty thousand of these, 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.679 but not that they bought the rights. Well, let's say this, 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:29.879 they either bought the rights or all but bought the 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.159 rights by being their number one customer. Right. I like 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.239 how you married the two facts. Yeah, so I mean 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:39.639 they were not only did they right well at high altitudes, 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:41.600 but they were just sturdy. And it was a pin 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:45.840 that you could take into battle with you. Yeah, so 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.400 it wouldn't flood as they call it at high altitudes. 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.560 And yeah, it was pretty a pretty durable pen um 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.240 and so Bureau he patented it with his brother, George 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:02.480 founded the the Bureau Pen Company, right, And I think 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.200 that's so cute. He named it after himself, even though 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.480 he and his brother did it, and he very easily. 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:09.840 No Bureau was his last name. I'm sorry he could 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.720 have named right, that's what I thought he'd done. His 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:15.639 last name is Bereau, Okay, so that makes way more sense. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:17.640 I thought he'd been like, George, thank you, but I'm 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.359 naming this pen after myself. But it was it was 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:23.119 a pretty big hit. I don't think it was a 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.600 commercial success right away. Um, but that big order or 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.439 the purchase by the Royal Air Force, Um, definitely helped 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.960 the Bureau company established itself almost simultaneously. Well, a year 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.320 or two later, there was a guy in America named 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.720 Milton Reynolds, and he said, I just found some of 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:44.760 these bureau pens on a business trip I think in 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.119 like Argentina or somewhere, and um, he said, I'm going 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.280 to totally rip this off. And he did, and he 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:57.520 founded a company, UM and created the Reynolds pen, which 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:03.160 is basically the Bureau pen. Yeah, and these were really successful. Um. 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.639 I saw articles as ten bucks. But I found an 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.240 article from the New York Times from the nineteen forties 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:12.800 that talked about at Gimbals uh in New York, you 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.800 could buy one for twelve fifty, which was super expensive. 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:20.880 I mean twelve fifties expensive for a single pin today. 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.800 Sure you know, like a point pinoa be a real 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.080 jerk to pay twelve fifty for a pen these days, 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.159 with this economy. But this little article said that people 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.040 all but trampled one another to get ahold of these pins. 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.760 Gimbals ordered fifty thousand of them and sold thirty thousand 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.960 of them in week one. Eventually there would be a 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:44.960 lot of lawsuits, UM, back and forth about the patent. Basically, 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:49.040 those never went anywhere because what they were essentially saying 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.120 is the idea for the ball bearing, which is kind 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.119 of what makes us all possible, has been around for 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.639 so long that no one can really claim this to 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.320 the point where like you can sue one another. That's 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.120 how I could not find how Reynolds got away with it. 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.600 My um my idea was that they had just filed 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.680 the patent. George in Laslow had filed the patent in Europe, 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.720 and um Reynolds was doing it here in the Undy. 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.159 But it was that I didn't realize that there was 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.439 actually a patent battle. Yeah, and then there was a battle, 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.120 like Favor came on board. I mean everybody started making 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.400 pens like crazy all of a sudden. Favor then eventually 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:29.280 sued uh Reynolds because they just sued them for a 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.760 shoddy product. Really, I didn't. I'm not sure how that 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.720 quite works because it wasn't like they were a consumer. 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.840 They get that off of the market. But uh, they 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:41.359 were kind of right, I don't think. I don't know 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:43.160 if they won that lawsuit, but a lot of these 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:48.040 returns UH pins were returned. H these initial Reynolds pins 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.280 were returned because they didn't work, but children with burns 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.600 on their arms because the pen just suddenly caught fire. 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:59.040 But he made almost six million dollars in nineteen five 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.199 dollars in the first ti months of his company, so 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:04.960 he was set. So by the way, Chuck, I'm on 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:09.000 the west Sig inflation calculator. Yeah, you have it app 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.480 twelve dollars. I should just have it as like an 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:15.359 app in my brain, you know. Maybe, oh, that is 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:17.399 the first thing I'll do, and we start adding apps 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.920 to our brains. But um, twelve dollars and fifty cents 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.399 and would be a hundred and seventy three dollars in 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:28.399 sixteen cents here. Yeah, that's a little crazy for a 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.400 brand new pen. If people have been living with fountain 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:34.720 pens and they were sick of them, the idea of 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.480 something that improved on that much would I could see 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:42.160 running and droves the gimbals being like, you're you're gonna 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:44.600 go out of business eventually, and Macy's will stick around, 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.280 so tell me all your pen They also did you 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.040 know it was a lot of advertising hullabaloo, Like they 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:53.080 called them the pen of the Atomic era and sort 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:58.119 of all that futuristic stuff. People went wild for healthy glow. 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:03.000 But as far as my own big pen, uh, this 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:05.920 was a revolution because, like we said, twelve fifties, a 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:09.800 lot of dough back then in a Frenchman named Marcel. 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:13.000 Uh would it be beache b I c h I 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.760 think it's big is bi. That's why he dropped the 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:18.920