Michael1942's Blog

Earliest Modern ball point pen was invented by Georg Biro and his bother Laszlo in 1938 (this item was first invented in the late 19th century but never produced until the Biro brothers exploited it in the 30’s).
Early in the 1940’s Patrick J. Frawley acquired his first company, a ballpoint pen parts manufacturer that defaulted on its loan. In 1949 The Frawley Pen Company developed a revolutionary new ink, which dried instantly. The pen that delivered this ink was called “The Paper Mate”.
In 1955 the Frawley Pen Company was acquired by Gillette for $15.5 million. So what does this mean? In 1955 i was just starting high school and one of the first ball point pens I purchased was a “papermate”. This purchase was also my first experience with the dreaded leaking ball point pen .When the only available ink writing device was a fountain pen this problem was expected and cautiously avoided by not placing the pen in your shirt pocket with the point down. The earlier ball point pens were more prone to leakage until Paper mate came along but the advent of the dry ink of papermate did not completely go away until later in the 60’s as the ink making process improved. This just a little note about writing and how I am happy to have a computer with spell chek? check?.