Timeline of the Pen
Ink-writing instruments from Egyptian rush brushes and Greek reed pens through quills, steel nibs and the fountain pen to the ballpoint, felt-tip, rollerball and gel pens and digital styluses, over about 4,600 years to the 2020s.
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- Engineering & Technology
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- 25 events ~2600 BCE – 2017
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- by claude-opus-5-5
~2600 BCE: Egyptian scribes write in ink on papyrus
Scribes in Old Kingdom Egypt wrote on papyrus with carbon-black and red ochre inks, using thin stems of rush chewed or frayed at the end into a fine brush and kept in slots in a wooden palette. The oldest known inscribed papyri, the logbooks of an official named Merer, date from late in the reign of Khufu, in the mid-26th century BCE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen3rd century BCE: Greek scribes use the split reed pen
In Ptolemaic Egypt, writers trained in Greek wrote with a kalamos, a hollow reed cut to a point and split, while Egyptian-trained scribes kept the rush brush until about the 1st century BCE. The reed pen, or calamus, became the usual pen of the Greek and Roman world and remained the pen of Arabic calligraphy as the qalam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_penearly 7th century: Isidore of Seville describes the quill pen
In his encyclopedic "Etymologies", Isidore of Seville listed the reed and the feather as the scribe's instruments and noted that the quill's tip is split in two, the earliest specific reference to quill pens, though feather pens were probably in use somewhat earlier. Quills, usually goose feathers, were the main pen of Europe for over a thousand years, suited to parchment and to the iron gall ink widely used from medieval times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quill953: Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz orders a reservoir pen
According to the Fatimid jurist al-Qadi al-Nu'man, the caliph al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah asked for a pen that would not stain his hands or clothes, and was given one that held ink in a reservoir and released it when writing. The account is the earliest known description of a pen with its own ink supply, though no example survives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mu%27izz_li-Din_Allah1636: Schwenter describes a pen made of two quills
In his "Deliciae Physico-Mathematicae", the German mathematician Daniel Schwenter described a pen in which ink was held in one quill, sealed with a cork, and fed into a second quill that did the writing. European references to such reservoir pens multiplied over the following two centuries, but they leaked and clogged, and the dipped quill remained standard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_pen1809: Fölsch receives an English fountain pen patent
In May Frederick Fölsch received the first English patent for a fountain pen, and Joseph Bramah patented an improved feed that September. John Scheffer's "Penographic", patented in 1819, was the first such design to see commercial success, and in 1827 France registered a self-filling pen by the Romanian student Petrache Poenaru whose barrel was a swan quill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_pen1820s: Birmingham makers mass-produce steel pen nibs
Manufacturers in Birmingham, England, among them John and William Mitchell, Joseph Gillott and Josiah Mason (who made the pens sold under the name of the London stationer James Perry), began stamping steel nibs with presses and dies; Gillott patented a process for elongated nib points in 1831. Machine-made nibs became cheap enough to displace the quill, and by the 1850s more than half the steel pens made in the world came from Birmingham.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_pen_trade1884: Waterman patents a fountain pen feed
Lewis Waterman, a New York insurance salesman, received a US patent on February 12 for a feed with fine channels that used capillary action to let air into the reservoir as ink flowed out, giving a steadier flow than earlier fountain pens. The story that a leaking pen ruined one of his contracts is unverified. His company became a major fountain pen maker in the early 20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Waterman1888: John Loud patents the first ballpoint pen
John J. Loud, a lawyer in Weymouth, Massachusetts, received a US patent on October 30 for a pen with a small rotating steel ball held in a socket, meant for marking rough surfaces such as leather. It was too coarse for writing on paper and was never commercialized, and the patent lapsed; many later ballpoint patents met the same fate for lack of a suitable ink.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Loud1908: Sheaffer patents a lever-filling fountain pen
Walter A. Sheaffer, a jeweler in Fort Madison, Iowa, received a US patent on August 25 for a fountain pen filled by pulling a lever on the barrel that squeezed an internal rubber sac, which then drew in ink when released. Similar lever fillers had been patented earlier, but Sheaffer's company, founded in 1912, made the design popular, and self-filling pens replaced eyedropper filling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_A._Sheaffer1938: László Bíró patents his ballpoint pen in Britain
László Bíró, a Hungarian journalist, and his brother György, a chemist, developed a ballpoint pen using a thick, quick-drying ink similar to newspaper ink, and László filed a British patent on June 15. Earlier ballpoints, from John Loud's of 1888 onward, had failed for lack of such an ink and a reliable ball socket.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_B%C3%ADr%C3%B31941: Parker launches the Parker 51
The Parker Pen Company introduced the Parker 51, a fountain pen with a hooded nib designed for a new quick-drying ink. Sold through the 1940s and 1950s in very large numbers, it is often cited as one of the most successful fountain pen models, before ballpoints took over everyday writing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_511943: Bíró brothers patent and sell ballpoints in Argentina
Having left Hungary, with its antisemitic laws, for Paris and then Argentina, the Bíró brothers filed a new patent in June 1943 and began selling pens under the name Birome. A British licence reportedly led to production of the pens for Royal Air Force aircrews, since they did not leak at altitude, and Argentina later marked Bíró's birthday as Inventors' Day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen1945: Reynolds Rocket ballpoint goes on sale in New York
The Chicago businessman Milton Reynolds, having copied a Biro pen bought in Buenos Aires while working around its patents, put his Reynolds Rocket on sale at Gimbels department store in New York on October 29 for $12.50, and thousands sold on the first day. Within a few years, complaints about leaking and skipping and a price war among imitators ended the first ballpoint boom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Reynolds1950: Marcel Bich launches the Bic Cristal
The French manufacturer Marcel Bich, who licensed rights to László Bíró's design, introduced the Bic Cristal, a cheap disposable ballpoint with a clear hexagonal barrel, in December. Bic reported selling its 100 billionth Cristal in 2006, and it is widely described as the best-selling pen in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_Cristal1953: Sidney Rosenthal begins selling the Magic Marker
Sidney Rosenthal of New York, who first used the Magic Marker name in September 1952, began selling the marker commercially the following March: a glass bottle of ink with a wool felt wick, used for signs, labels and posters. Felt-tip markers had been patented earlier, including by Lee Newman in 1910, but Rosenthal's product made them a common household and office item in the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marker_pen1962: Yukio Horie develops the fiber-tipped pen
Yukio Horie, founder of the Japan Stationery Company, later renamed Pentel, developed with Masao Miura a pen whose fibrous tip fed water-based ink by capillary action, sold from 1963 as the Pentel Sign Pen. The first tips used bamboo, soon replaced by synthetic fibers, and fine fiber tips extended felt-tip technology from markers to everyday writing pens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentel1963: Sutherland draws with a light pen in Sketchpad
Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad, written for his Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doctoral thesis, let a user draw and manipulate shapes directly on the display of the TX-2 computer with a light pen, an optical stylus that sensed the screen's beam. It became a reference point for later pen and graphical interfaces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchpad1963: Ohto introduces the rollerball pen
The Japanese company Ohto introduced a ballpoint that fed thinner, water-based ink instead of oil-based paste, creating the rollerball pen, which gave a smoother, darker line closer to that of a fountain pen. Sources date the launch to 1963 or 1964.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_pen1968: Fisher Space Pen flies on Apollo 7
Paul C. Fisher patented a ballpoint with a sealed cartridge pressurized by nitrogen and thixotropic ink, developed with his own money; after testing, NASA adopted it and astronauts carried it from Apollo 7. Contrary to a popular story, NASA did not spend millions on the pen. Astronauts had used pencils, but NASA's 1965 purchase of mechanical pencils at about $128 each drew criticism, and broken graphite tips were a hazard in a spacecraft. Soviet cosmonauts also adopted the Fisher pen in 1969.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen1983: Wacom founded to make pen tablets
The Japanese company Wacom was founded in Saitama and in 1984 launched its WT series tablet, whose cordless pen worked by electromagnetic resonance, drawing power from the tablet rather than a cord; its SD series of 1987 added pressure sensitivity. Its pen tablets and pen displays became standard tools for illustrators, animators and designers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacom1984: Sakura Color Products introduces the gel pen
Sakura Color Products of Osaka introduced the gel pen, whose ink is a water-based gel containing suspended pigment that thins as the ball turns. Gel ink gave the smoothness of a rollerball with opaque, vivid colors, and Sakura's Gelly Roll line followed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gel_pen2006: Pilot launches the erasable FriXion pen
The Pilot Corporation of Japan launched the FriXion, reportedly first in Europe and in Japan the following year, a gel pen whose thermochromic ink turns colorless at about 60 to 65 degrees Celsius, so that heat from friction with the pen's rubber tip makes the writing disappear; it can reappear if chilled to about minus 10 degrees Celsius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_(pen_company)2015: Apple introduces the Apple Pencil
Apple announced the Apple Pencil on September 9 alongside the first iPad Pro, an active stylus that reported pressure and tilt to the tablet. It helped bring precise pen input to mainstream tablets, followed by the Apple Pencil Pro in 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pencil2017: Chinese steelmaker produces ballpoint tip steel
After Premier Li Keqiang publicly lamented that China, which made most of the world's ballpoint pens, still imported the steel for their tips, mainly from Japan and Switzerland, the state-owned Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group announced in January that it could make the steel itself. The episode became a widely cited example of the difficulty of precision manufacturing, and later reports suggested imports continued.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen