Writing instruments were not always so omnipresent as today. Especially industrially engineering and design changed the availability of pens and pencils as we can read in the excellent book on design by Papanek1 .
Shortly after the end of World War II the New York Times carried the first full-page ad for Gimbel’s sale of the Reynolds ball-point pen at only $25 each. By Monday morning. Herald Square was so clogged with people waiting for Cimbel’s to open that extra police had to be brought in to control the crowds. Places in the ball-point pen queue could be sold for $5 to $10, and, until Cimbel’s slapped a one-pen-to-a-customer order on the sale Wednesday, pens could be readily sold for $50 to $60 each.
But quality of design and materials were partially very poor as we can rread later on.
[…]and there were no replacement cartridges because the pens were one-shot affairs. You threw them away as soon as they ran dry, if not sooner. Still they sold.
Those pencil leads are even older but serve as a refill.
Place found: Geneva flea market Price: CHF Date: 30.01.2015
- Victor Papanek: Design for the Real World, 1985 ↩