OCTOBER 29th - 00Bic



On this day in 1945, Gimbel’s Department Store in New York City 1st sold the Reynold’s Rocket, a ballpoint pen developed by Milton Reynolds. The pen was widely popular at first and sold more than $100,000 worth on that first day. However, this wasn’t just a simple case of Reynold’s developing a very usable tool that satisfied consumer-demand. In fact, the tale of the ballpoint pen reads a bit more like a Bond flick than you would ever think. The first patent was filed way back in the 1880’s, by John Loud, but his pen had some snags leaving production quiet. Then the Biros, some brothers from Argentina, improved upon it before selling the rights to the Eversharp Company. Still the pen had flaws. Then homeboy Reynolds was vacationing in Argentina, saw the pen those Biro dudes made, and was like I got this, not really caring about the patents or the kinks because some of the patents had expired and he didn’t have time for all the legal nonsense or kinks anyway. He manufactured the pen and put it out on the market before Eversharp, and he became moderately wealthy because of it. But then the son of Eversharp’s President had a freak accident while visiting a manufacturer's plant and he lost a good portion of his hand. He blamed Reynold’s for the mishap, because the company had gone into to overdrive trying to get their own product on the shelves. So this kid built a prosthetic hand out of stainless steel ballpoint pens, called himself “The Mighty Pen,” and went on a revenge-laden killing spree of all of Reynold’s upper-level employees and family. Fearing for his life, Reynolds reached out to Marcel Bich, a French penholder and case manufacturer, who agreed to help Reynolds if Reynolds would get out the pen game. Reynolds agreed, and Bich had “The Mighty Pen” neutralized (no one knows how, but rumors persist that he encased the Pen’s hand in locked carbonite) and then vowed to make the ballpoint pen affordable and kink-free. He went back to the Biro brothers to work out the flaws-giving a percentage to the rightful inventors. And that his how Bic pens became popular. Told you it was Bond-like. Maybe one day I’ll tell you how Bic lighters cornered the market.

*I may have taken a bit of creative license. The real story was basically the same minus the whole Mighty Pen killing spree.

This day has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more