How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous
(openculture.com)51 points by janandonly 9 hours ago
51 points by janandonly 9 hours ago
Are you suggesting their lighters are bad? That’s certainly not my experience. I have a Bic mini that has been packed inside my camping stove kit (a small titanium pot containing an iso-propane canister, stove, and rag) for nearly 15 years. Since I use barely any of its fuel, it hasn’t run out yet, and I suspect it could continue to work as a striker whenever the fuel does run out.
…whether that's ballpoints or razors or anything else.
Oh, man, those crap razors. I’m in Whitehorse, Yukon, and the only disposable razors the drug store carries are BIC. I remember that they’re crap, but obviously people must still buy them, how bad could they be?
I would have had fewer nicks and cuts if I’d used my pocket knife.
BIC Orange fine.
https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Orange-Original-Ballpoint-Point/d...
The box at your link calls it "Cristal fine Orange", so it's still a type of BIC Cristal like a sibling comment says.
> made to last with enough ink to write for an average of 3,5 km
measuring ink capacity in km makes total sense but I find it hilarious
The skilcraft US government pen, was spec'd to write 5k in -40F to 160F and is also manufactured by the blind. I've got a box of them spread out anywhere I need a pen.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/0...
There's an old article from The Atlantic [1] that makes the case that the ballpoint pen killed cursive: they require much more pressure to write with compared to rollerball or fountain pens. Like the author, I started using a fountain pen and it makes so much more sense why you would write in cursive with that thing.
If you like taking analog notes, I highly recommend getting yourself a starter fountain pen and some good paper (emphatically not Moleskin—those work best with pencils; too much bleed with fountain pen ink) and enjoy hand writing as it was meant to be. ;)
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballp...
Two articles on it (which probably were part of the source for this one):
- https://www.penaddict.com/blog/2016/1/17/bic-cristal-ballpoi...
- https://www.jetpens.com/blog/How-the-Ballpoint-Pen-Changed-t...
a book which has a bit on the usage of this and similar Bic models is:
https://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/2012/12/blue-pencil-no-...
(ob. discl., I received a copy (which I gave to my daughter) to write the review: http://ftp.tug.org/TUGboat/tb34-2/tb107reviews-zapfhallmark....) which has the line:
> Some such details are very humbling, such as the exquisitely beautiful design study for Zapfino-like capitals intended for use with Firenze shown with the 49 cent Deluxe Fine Point Bic ballpoint pen used to render the letters (pg. 43).
It's such a versatile product. I bet everyone here who's older than 45/50 have at least once used a Bic pen to rewind a cassete tape.
I also used the plastic clip as a stapler remover.
There were many other uses for it, for sure.
For that job you needed one of the opaque round ones with a more flexible plastic. It had to friction fit over the centre of the keyway so it could deliver some torque as you were working the tumblers.
I'm not that older, but I had learned this trick, mainly when the device goes wrong and we need to fix the tape :)
cassettes were still popular 20y ago, you can probably take 15y off your estimate!
At least in my area, cassettes were still popular 30 years ago during the transition to CDs, but by 20 years ago we were in the midst of the transition from CD to iPod. I don't remember seeing new tapes for sale anywhere after about 2000, and we were definitely burning CDs full of MP3s before then instead of making mixtapes. Personally, I bought my last cassette around 1995. Your point still stands, however...I think cutting 10-15y off the estimate would be reasonable.
In my own case CD's, MP3 and cassette use have overlapped. MP3 players were expensive, Discmans were too big to fit in a small pocket. So walkmans were still useful. I used to record tunes and mixes from the radio at the time too as it was super quick to hit record on the ghettoblaster when listening to the radio provided you had a tape ready. So yes I was still using and listening to cassettes in the early 2000's.
Just signed a contract with a lawyers pen which was too heavy on ink so I got ink all over my hands. Was a pain to put my hat on after without getting ink on it. Seriously considered bringing my own pen before hand. Guess I will next time.
Not only is this pen ubiquitous, but it's ink flow is usually pretty light, which makes it not smear on your hands or the page.
I used these a lot as a kid and always disliked them. Pens and pencils are strange because there's su ch a wide range of preferences for such a simple thing. Something about them always irked me and I honestly don't know what it is.
The BIC Round Stic, however, I love. I bought a box of sixth like a decade ago and still have like thirty left. Super simple, super cheap, and just great for me.
I remember a skit in a (terrible) British sketch show a zillion years ago where Biro tells the details of his secret invention to someone with an aside that there was nobody else in the house except "the butler Bic, the housekeeper Pentel, and the chauffeur Platignum" :)
the word "biro" didn't exist until Biro invented the ballpoint pen, which came to be known after its inventor
Not in English, but the word bíró means judge in Hungarian language. The earliest written memory of the word is from the year 1306, from a land ownership certificate issued that year.
There are some amazing drawings done with blue Bics.
https://mymodernmet.com/paulus-architect-ballpoint-pen-drawi...
I bought a pack of 100 of them for super cheap a few years ago, and a pack of 200 or so pencils with erasers from amazon basics. They carried me through all my exams in university, I have some in every backpack, purse, everywhere. Never had to worry about not having a pen ready, or a replacement if I lost one the morning before the exam. That is truly a buy-it-for-life level investment.
I didn't use it for exams, but I once went to a regional clothing store known for being extremely cheap and poor quality and I bought a 1€ mechanical pencil there. Surprisingly, that mechanical pencil had an amazingly well engineered metal collet instead of the usual plastic ones. I've used that pencil for years and my only complaint is that if you don't tighten it enough, it'll unscrew itself and snap your lead.
It's the perfect product. I pick it up, I use it, it functions perfectly without thought.
It's a lifelong mission to find any such tech product.
Ever tried writing a few pages with it?
It requires too much pressure compared with gel pens, rollerball pens, let alone fountain pens (although the latter are not for everyone). It soon creates fatigue. And at least in my case I also make uglier handwriting with them that with gel pens, rollerball pens, let alone fountain pens.
It's an extremely reliable product to do what it does, as well as extremely cheap, but far from perfect IMO. I see it more as a last resort if nothing else is available.
So true. I hated using BIC ballpoint pens for this reason. I found the Pilot Rollerballs are my favorites to use. The 0.5mm size writes really smoothly.
I picked up a couple bolt action pens for some more heft and put the Pilot rollerball fillers into the pen to get a really pleasant writing experience.
I used to put some pilot pens in some Geocaches I maintain. No longer, they always get stolen. It's now pencils cut in half. Used to be Dixon, but I'm looking for a new pencil maker
I like them. Don't use pens much, used to be a bit picky, either fountain pens or roller balls or gel, but they'd always leak or be dry or not be ready to roll when I needed them.
I had one Cristal pen that I managed to hold on to and use through at least three moves and 8+ years, until I finally ran it out of ink. It didn't get lost, destroyed, eaten (by puppies or humans), or quit working -- until there was nothing left of it. It was a small accomplishment, but one that I'm absurdly proud of.
Newtons were enormous, having to lug it around was awkward, so I stopped bringing mine everywhere.
`man cat` don't think i've ever been upset at its functionality (or ever read the manual to be fair)
Such a crappy pen design, guess it proves mediocre designs sometimes prevail. The logical backflips that people use to justify its success are a little annoying though
Care to specify what makes this thing that sold 100 billion copies and is instantly, reliably usable in nearly any conceivable context so crappy? Why not also explain your superior design that you think would work so much better.
Other comments note how it creates fatigue within an hour of writing, which is also my experience. Whether that's a result of low quality ink holders, tips that force overgripping, weight or something else, I do not know.
I have a pen cup for when I need to jot something quickly and can't be bothered to get my primary pen from another room, and I've noticed that I rarely, if ever, choose the Cristal. Granted, it is far from being the worst pen out there, but I wince at the thought of using it as my daily pen.
Furthermore, I don't think that selling 100 billion copies of a thing is a sign of quality, e.g., see Microsoft's product line.
As for superior design in a similar price category (i.e., get it free at every conference room), hands down, it's the Schneider K15. Solid ink holders, comfortable tip, a nice weight balance (albeit I find it too light overall), with an imo beautiful modernist design as a cherry on top.
I've had a few of those leak ink over a bunch of my school stuff over the years.
I think it's just not very solidly built, and in some set of circumstances (certainly not always) it's prone to making a mess.
My favourite is actually the BIC M10. Fell totally.out of fashion but I dislike the idea of detachable cap which gets lost all to easy.
https://fr.bic.com/fr/bic-m10-original-stylos-bille-retracta...
I use gel pens, because they leave thinner and more black trace. I think ballpoint pen belongs to history.
Gel pens smear when used left-handed. They are unusable for 10% of the population.
They’re so good. I was always a pilot g2 guy but I picked up one of the jetstreams at a 7-11 in Japan for like a buck and it’s just the perfect pen.
> It’s a ballpoint, with all of the advantages, that writes smoother than any gel.
Gel pens are ballpoints. What do you mean by "ballpoint" here?
> Try a Uni-Ball Jetsream
I would never choose to use one of those, since they aren't available in 0.5mm. 0.7mm is too thick.
0.5mm: https://www.jetpens.com/Uni-Jetstream-Lite-Touch-Ink-Ballpoi...
“Gel pens” are technically ballpoints, true, but when one says “ballpoint” it’s usually taken to refer to an oil based ballpoint like a Bic, whereas gel ink writes quite differently.
Jetstreams come in a lot of forms, including 0.5mm and 0.38mm I believe.
Just checked, their website lists 0.28 mm, 0.38, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 mm, with examples of each. [0]
What pens do you find best and what is your use-case?
[0] https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Uni-Jetstream-A-Comprehensive-G...
I agree that gel writes better but you are wrong about ballpoints. It's like saying i don't write spanish so that means it's useless.
Thick gel pens soak through the paper so they're not great and the thinner nibs break easily or they pierce the paper.
Most times you pick up a pen it's to jot down a quick note or number, a ballpoint makes more sense for that.
The Cristal is the front-runner in my brain for "most iconic consumer product of the 20th century."
That said, it's weird how they've completely vanished from my personal landscape. The opaque white Biros are more common now. But I think I'll go seek out a Cristal later today, just for nostalgia's sake.
My thinking tool, along with a ream of 80gsm blank white printer paper.
As well as being ubiquitous, reliable and cheap, you can also vary the line weight it produces with pressure. This makes it great for sketches and diagrams, as well as straight writing.
Also useful for picking some tubular locks
https://postureinfohub.com/how-to-pick-a-tubular-lock-with-a...
and for disassembling the gamecube (in the days before easy access to non-standard screwdrivers)
It really is great at being a pen. It writes well and doesn't break. Shout out to the bic which has 4 colours (rgb&b) for being so useful and high quality.
But if you want to know what the best cheap writing pen, it's the clear pilot pen. Everyone around me uses it. There is also the opaque pilot v5 which was the gold standard when i was in school.
It's not very comfortable, its hard edges are unpleasant for the fingers and it feels too thin.
The flimsy cap gets lost easy and there is an endless amount of ballpoint pens you can click, that don't even need a cap in the first place.
Average clicking ballpoint pens have a plastic that's more comfortable to suck, lick and bite.
I always hated them.
You never bit on your pen? Especially back in the school days?
Ballpoint pens are the OG stress relief / concentration / "fidget spinner" toys. Except the BIC ones, those would easily shatter; suddenly finding your mouth to be full of sharp, orange or translucent shards of plastic, is the opposite of calm and focus.
I've never done that because pens end up in the dirtiest places. People aren't washing their hands before using them, they gets tossed in a bag and sit in the crevices alongside all sorts of dust and dirt, they get set on dirty desks and will even hit the floor sometimes. All-in-all, super gross.
Because they're useful in so many ways too. Have you not seen "The Gods Must be Crazy"?
Ah, I see you edited your original comment which read something like “ChatGPT might be the most successful product, millions of users in only a few days”.
What's the proper name for that other, arguably even more well-recognized, BIC pen, that looks like Cristal except its main body is opaque orange, and is generally cheap garbage that breaks in your hand if you squeeze it it too hard, and doesn't even write half the time?
(And yeah, I remember the taste of it, too. I've "eaten" through my share of these pens as a kid. It's the one pen you can't bite on, unless you like having shards of orange plastic everywhere.)
It's also magical in a big way - it's almost as if it were enchanted with a "handwriting: -10" debuff, because that's what happens when you try writing with it, relative to anything else (including pencils and crayons). To this day, I occasionally wonder, how did they manage to achieve that distinct effect.
In my circles, BIC as a brand is basically the stuff you don't buy unless as a last resort, whether that's ballpoints or razors or anything else.