A pen is a writing instrument used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or

drawing.[1] Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used, with a nib dipped in ink. Ruling
pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but technical
pens such as the Rapidograph are more commonly used. Modern types
include ballpoint, rollerball, fountain and felt or ceramic tippens.[2]

Contents
[hide]

 1Types of pens
o 1.1Modern
o 1.2Historic
 2History
 3See also
 4Notes and references
 5External links

Types of pens[edit]
Modern[edit]
The main modern types of pens can be categorized by the kind of writing tip or point on the pen:

An inexpensive ballpoint pen

 A ballpoint pen dispenses an oil-based ink by rolling a small hard sphere, usually 0.5–1.2 mm
and made of brass, steel, or tungsten carbide.[3] The ink dries almost immediately on contact with
paper. The ballpoint pen is usually reliable and comes in both inexpensive and expensive types.
It has replaced the fountain pen as the most common tool for everyday writing.
 A rollerball pen dispenses a water-based liquid or gel ink through a ball tip similar to that of a
ballpoint pen. The less-viscous ink is more easily absorbed by paper than oil-based ink, and the
pen moves more easily across a writing surface. The rollerball pen was initially designed to
combine the convenience of a ballpoint pen with the smooth "wet ink" effect of a fountain pen.
Gel inks are available in a range of colors, including metallic paint colors, glitter effects, neon,
blurred effects, saturated colors, pastel tones, vibrant shades, shady colors, invisible ink, see-
through effect, shiny colors, and glow-in-the-dark effects.
 A fountain pen uses water-based liquid ink delivered through a nib. The ink flows from a
reservoir through a "feed" to the nib, then through the nib, due to capillary action and gravity.
The nib has no moving parts and delivers ink through a thin slit to the writing surface. A fountain
pen reservoir can be refillable or disposable; the disposable type is called an ink cartridge. A pen
with a refillable reservoir may have a mechanism, such as a piston, to draw ink from a bottle
through the nib, or it may require refilling with an eyedropper. Refill reservoirs, also known
 as cartridge converters, are available for some pens which use disposable cartridges. A fountain
pen can be used with permanent or non-permanent inks.
 A Felt-tip pen, or marker, has a porous tip of fibrous material. The smallest, finest-tipped felt-tip
pens are used for writing on paper. Medium-tipped felt-tips are often used by children for
coloring and drawing. Larger types, often called "markers", are used for writing in larger sizes,
often on other surfaces such as corrugated boxes, whiteboards and for chalkboards, often called
"liquid chalk" or "chalkboard markers". Markers with wide tips and bright but transparent ink,
called highlighters, are used to highlight text that has already been written or printed. Pens
designed for children or for temporary writing (as with a whiteboard or overhead projector)
typically use non-permanent inks. Large markers used to label shipping cases or other packages
are usually permanent markers.
Historic[edit]
These historic types of pens are no longer in common use as writing instruments, but may be used
by calligraphers and other artists:

A dip pen

 A dip pen (or nib pen) consists of a metal nib with capillary channels, like that of a fountain pen,
mounted on a handle or holder, often made of wood. A dip pen usually has no ink reservoir and
must be repeatedly recharged with ink while drawing or writing. The dip pen has certain
advantages over a fountain pen. It can use waterproof pigmented (particle-and-binder-based)
inks, such as so-called India ink, drawing ink, or acrylic inks, which would destroy a fountain pen
by clogging, as well as the traditional iron gall ink, which can cause corrosion in a fountain pen.
Dip pens are now mainly used in illustration, calligraphy, and comics. A particularly fine-pointed
type of dip pen known as a crowquill is a favorite instrument of artists, such as David Stone
Martin and Jay Lynch, because its flexible metal point can create a variety of delicate lines,
textures and tones with slight pressures while drawing.
 The ink brush is the traditional writing implement in East Asian calligraphy. The body of the
brush can be made from either bamboo, or rarer materials such as red sandalwood, glass, ivory,
silver, and gold. The head of the brush can be made from the hair (or feathers) of a wide variety
of animals, including the weasel, rabbit, deer, chicken, duck, goat, pig, tiger, etc. There is also a
tradition in both China and Japan of making a brush using the hair of a newborn, as a once-in-a-
lifetime souvenir for the child. This practice is associated with the legend of an ancient Chinese
scholar who scored first in the Imperial examinations by using such a personalized brush.
Calligraphy brushes are widely considered an extension of the calligrapher's arm. Today,
calligraphy may also be done using a pen, but pen calligraphy does not enjoy the same prestige
as traditional brush calligraphy.
 A quill is a pen made from a flight feather of a large bird, most often a goose. Quills were used
as instruments for writing with ink before the metal dip pen, the fountain pen, and eventually the
ballpoint pen came into use. Quill pens were used in medieval times to write on parchment or
paper. The quill eventually replaced the reed pen.
 A reed pen is cut from a reed or bamboo, with a slit in a narrow tip. Its mechanism is essentially
similar to that of a quill. The reed pen has almost disappeared but it is still used by young school
students in some parts of India and Pakistan, who learn to write with them on small timber
boards known as "Takhti".

History[edit]

M. Klein and Henry W. Wynne received US patent#68445 in 1867 for an ink chamber and delivery system in
the handle of the fountain pen.

Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes
or reed pens from the Juncus maritimus or sea rush.[4] In his book A History of Writing, Steven Roger
Fischer suggests that on the basis of finds at Saqqara, the reed pen might well have been used for
writing on parchment as long ago as the First Dynasty or about 3000 BC. Reed pens continued to be
used until the Middle Ages, but were slowly replaced by quills from about the 7th century. The reed
pen, generally made from bamboo, is still used in some parts of Pakistan by young students and is
used to write on small wooden boards.[5]
The reed pen survived until papyrus was replaced as a writing surface by animal skins, vellum and
parchment. The smoother surface of skin allowed finer, smaller writing with a quill pen, derived from
the flight feather.[6] The quill pen was used in Qumran, Judea to write some of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
which date back to around 1000 BC. The scrolls were written in Hebrew dialects with bird feathers or
quills. There is a specific reference to quills in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville in the 7th
century.[7] Quill pens were still widely used in the 18th century, and were used to write and sign
the Constitution of the United States in 1787.
A copper nib was found in the ruins of Pompeii, showing that metal nibs were used in the year
79.[8] There is also a reference to 'a silver pen to carry ink in', in Samuel Pepys' diary for August
1663.[9] 'New invented' metal pens are advertised in The Times in 1792.[10] A metal pen point was
patented in 1803, but the patent was not commercially exploited. A patent for the manufacture of
metal pens was advertised for sale by Bryan Donkin in 1811.[11] John Mitchell of Birmingham started
to mass-produce pens with metal nibs in 1822, and after that, the quality of steel nibs improved
enough so that dip pens with metal nibs came into general use.[12]

Deliciae physico-mathematicae, 1636

The earliest historical record of a pen with a reservoir dates back to the 10th century CE. In
953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands
or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the
nib.[13] This pen may have been a fountain pen, but its mechanism remains unknown, and only one
record mentioning it has been found. A later reservoir pen was developed in 1636. In his Deliciae
Physico-Mathematicae (1636), German inventor Daniel Schwenter described a pen made from two
quills. One quill served as a reservoir for ink inside the other quill. The ink was sealed inside the quill
with cork. Ink was squeezed through a small hole to the writing point. In 1809, Bartholomew Folsch
received a patent in England for a pen with an ink reservoir.[13]
While a student in Paris, Romanian Petrache Poenaru invented the fountain pen, which the French
Government patented in May 1827. Fountain pen patents and production then increased in the
1850s.
The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issued on October 30, 1888, to John J Loud.[14] In
1938, László Bíró, a Hungarian newspaper editor, with the help of his brother George, a chemist,
began to design new types of pens, including one with a tiny ball in its tip that was free to turn in a
socket. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and
leaving it on the paper. Bíró filed a British patent on June 15, 1938. In 1940 the Bíró brothers and a
friend, Juan Jorge Meyne, moved to Argentina fleeing Nazi Germany. On June 10 they filed another
patent, and formed "Bíró Pens of Argentina". By the summer of 1943 the first commercial models
were available.[15] Erasable ballpoint pens were introduced by Papermate in 1979 when
the Erasermate was put on the market.

1915 advertisement for "Vulcan" Ink Pencils.

Slavoljub Eduard Penkala, a naturalized Croatian engineer and inventor of Polish-Dutch origin from
the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia in Austria-Hungary, became renowned for further development of
the mechanical pencil (1906) – then called an "automatic pencil" – and the first solid-ink fountain pen
(1907). Collaborating with an entrepreneur by the name of Edmund Moster, he started the Penkala-
Moster Company and built a pen-and-pencil factory that was one of the biggest in the world at the
time. This company, now called TOZ-Penkala, still exists today. "TOZ" stands for "Tvornica olovaka
Zagreb", meaning "Zagreb Pencil Factory".

Modern marker pens.

In the 1960s, the fiber or felt-tipped pen was invented by Yukio Horie of the Tokyo Stationery
Company, Japan.[16] Paper Mate's Flair was among the first felt-tip pens to hit the U.S. market in the
1960s, and it has been the leader ever since. Marker pens and highlighters, both similar to felt pens,
have become popular in recent times.
Rollerball pens were introduced in the early 1970s. They use a mobile ball and liquid ink to produce
a smoother line. Technological advances during the late 1980s and early 1990s have improved the
roller ball's overall performance. A porous point pen contains a point made of some porous material
such as felt or ceramic. A high quality drafting pen will usually have a ceramic tip, since this wears
well and does not broaden when pressure is applied while writing.
Although the invention of the typewriter and personal computer with the keyboard input method has
offered another way to write, the pen is still the main means of writing.[17] Many people like to use
expensive types and brands of pens, including fountain pens, and these are sometimes regarded as
a status symbol.[18]