The History of the Ballpoint Pen: From Marbles to Your Desk

Where It All Started

In 1930, Hungarian journalist László Bíró watched children playing with marbles and noticed how the balls left a clean, even trail across a wet surface. That observation sparked an idea: a pen with a small rotating metal ball at the tip that would spread ink just as evenly across paper. Bíró and his brother György built a working prototype and showed it at the Budapest International Fair in 1931, then secured a patent for the design in 1938.

How the Ballpoint Took Over the World

In 1944, French businessman Marcel Bich acquired the rights to Bíró's design. The following year he founded the company that would become Bic. Over the next few years, Bich's team refined the design, investing in precision Swiss technology to manufacture the tiny steel balls. The Bic Cristal launched in December 1950 — a pen that's barely changed since. France's Ministry of Education approved it for classroom use in 1965, and by 2006 total sales had passed 100 billion units, making it the best-selling pen in history.

Why It Won

Unlike the fountain pens of the era, which smudged easily and needed constant refilling, the ballpoint worked instantly, reliably, and with almost no maintenance. Its low cost also made it disposable — a genuinely new idea for a writing instrument at the time.

You'll find classic Bic-style pens and the rest of our writing range in our stationery collection.