Before pens, there were quills. The best ones were usually made from goose and swan feathers, with the strongest coming from the primary flight feathers. The left wing is favored by right-handed writers because the feathers curve out to the right, away from the hand holding the pen.
Something new will be popping up in backpacks as school starts: The Sharpie Retractable. It hit shelves Aug. 1 and offers Sharpie writing goodness at the click of a thumb. Comes in black, blue and red and sells for $2.99. Information at sharpie.com.
“The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.”
— Author Terry Pratchett
On Oct. 14, 2002, San Francisco receiver Terrell Owens caught a touchdown pass against Seattle, pulled a Sharpie from his sock, signed the football and presented it to his financial adviser, sitting in the stands nearby.
In 1947, Time magazine reported that President Truman gave a group of Colgate University students who were visiting the White House a brief lecture on honesty in politics, and then handed each of them a pen that said, “I swiped this from Harry S. Truman.”
The Helen Jeffris Wood Museum Center in Janesville, Wis., recently opened a room devoted to Parker pens. On display are historical pens, photos, items that the pen company gave employees, advertising pieces and more.
Ballpoint pens cannot write upside-down because they operate through gravity, which pulls the ink from the pen onto the writing surface.
Marcel Bich was a fountain pen salesman who hit it big in the 1950s after he bought patent rights to a ballpoint pen invented by Ladislas Biro. The disposable pen — the Bic — became the foundation for his business empire. And Biro is hardly forgotten. Several Bic models have the word Biro on them, a nod to their inventor.
Former Sen. Bob Dole, whose right arm was paralyzed from an injury suffered in World War II, holds a pen in his right hand so no one will try to shake it.
— Compiled by William Hageman
