Editing Ballpoint pen (section)

===Postwar proliferation===
[[File:The New Redesigned Jotter.jpg|thumb|2018 Parker Jotters are similar to the version that first came out in 1954]]

Following World War II, many companies vied to commercially produce their own ballpoint pen design. In pre-war Argentina, success of the Birome ballpoint was limited, but in mid-1945, the [[Eversharp]] Co., a maker of [[mechanical pencil]]s, teamed up with [[Eberhard Faber]] Co. to license the rights from Birome for sales in the United States.<ref name="About"/><ref name="1940s"/>

In 1946, a Spanish firm, Vila Sivill Hermanos, began to make a ballpoint, Regia Continua, and from 1953 to 1957 their factory also made Bic ballpoints, on contract with the French firm   [[Société Bic]].<ref>{{cite news|work=El Punt Avui|date=10 July 2016|url=http://admin.elpunt.cat/economia/article/18-economia/985015-el-meu-avi-va-fer-la-primera-estilografica-d-espanya-i-el-primer-boligraf-d-europa.html|last=Francesc|first=Muñoz|title=El meu avi va fer la primera estilogràfica d'Espanya i el primer bolígraf d'Europa|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=28 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328234031/http://admin.elpunt.cat/economia/article/18-economia/985015-el-meu-avi-va-fer-la-primera-estilografica-d-espanya-i-el-primer-boligraf-d-europa.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

During the same period, American entrepreneur [[Milton Reynolds]] came across a Birome ballpoint pen during a business trip to [[Buenos Aires]], Argentina.<ref name="About"/><ref name="1940s"/> Recognizing commercial potential, he purchased several ballpoint samples, returned to the United States, and founded the [[Milton Reynolds#The Reynolds International Pen Company|Reynolds International Pen Company]]. Reynolds bypassed the Birome patent with sufficient design alterations to obtain an American patent, beating Eversharp and other competitors to introduce the pen to the US market.<ref name="About"/><ref name="1940s"/> Debuting at [[Gimbels]] department store in New York City on 29 October 1945,<ref name="1940s"/> for US$12.50 each (1945 US dollar value, about ${{Inflation|US|12.50|1945}} in {{Inflation-year|US}} dollars),<ref name="1940s"/> "Reynolds Rocket" became the first commercially successful ballpoint pen.<ref name="About"/><ref name="How ballpoints work"/><ref>{{cite book|title=Inventing the 20th century: 100 inventions that shaped the world|year=2002|publisher=NYU Press|author=Stephen Van Dulken|author2=Andrew Phillips|page=106}}</ref> Reynolds went to great extremes to market the pen, with great success; Gimbel's sold many thousands of pens within one week. In Britain, the [[Frederick George Miles|Miles]]-[[Miles Aircraft#Bankruptcy and receivership|(Harry) Martin pen company]] was producing the first commercially successful ballpoint pens there by the end of 1945.<ref name="About"/><ref>[http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1976/1976%20-%201669.html "Miles."]  ''Flight International,'' 28 August 1976, p. 513.</ref><ref>[http://home.comcast.net/~aero51/html/other/biro.htm "The Biro Story."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080905090817/http://home.comcast.net/~aero51/html/other/biro.htm |date=5 September 2008 }} ''comcast.net.''  Retrieved: 25 April 2012.</ref>

Neither Reynolds' nor Eversharp's ballpoint lived up to consumer expectations in America. Ballpoint pen sales peaked in 1946, and consumer interest subsequently plunged due to [[market saturation]], going from [[luxury good]] to [[fungible]] [[consumable]].<ref name="1940s"/> By the early 1950s the ballpoint boom had subsided and Reynolds' company folded.<ref name="About"/>

[[Paper Mate]] pens, among the emerging ballpoint brands of the 1950s, bought the rights to distribute their own ballpoint pens in Canada.<ref name="intrigue"/> Facing concerns about ink-reliability, Paper Mate pioneered new ink formulas and advertised them as "banker-approved".<ref name="1940s"/> In 1954, [[Parker Pens]] released "[[Parker Jotter|The Jotter]]"—the company's first ballpoint—boasting additional features and technological advances which also included the use of tungsten-carbide textured ball-bearings in their pens.<ref name="About"/> In less than a year, Parker sold several million pens at prices between three and nine dollars.<ref name="About"/> In the 1960s, the failing [[Eversharp|Eversharp Co.]] sold its pen division to Parker and ultimately folded.<ref name="About"/>

[[Marcel Bich]] also introduced a ballpoint pen to the American marketplace in the 1950s, licensed from Bíró and based on the Argentine designs.<ref name="bpp encyc"/><ref name="Phaidon"/> Bich shortened his name to Bic in 1953, forming the ballpoint brand [[Société Bic|Bic]] now recognized globally.<ref name="How ballpoints work"/> Bic pens struggled until the company launched its "Writes First Time, Every Time!"<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bicfightforyourwrite.com/products/pens/ | title=BIC Fight for Your Write }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095504388 | title=BIC }}</ref> advertising campaign in the 1960s.<ref name="How ballpoints work"/> Competition during this era forced unit prices to drop considerably.<ref name="How ballpoints work"/>

In 2002, the Pakistani company Shaheen Group entered the pen market with the subsidiary Shaheen Ballpoints, as in Pakistan the ballpoint pen had a big demand but its quality was low. Shaheen had to compete with foreign companies that were in Pakistan for decades, such as Sayyed Engineers, Dollar Industries, Shahsons and Indus Pencils. The wholesale market bought their stocks in advance, but after six months the company had to pull their stocks due technical and marketing issues.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Azhar |first1=Manqoosh ur Rehman Sarwar M. |year=2014 |title=Shaheen Ballpoints: a project of the Shaheen Group |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/eemcs-10-2013-0199/full/html |access-date=25 February 2025 |journal=Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies |volume=4 |issue=4 |language=en |publisher=[[Emerald Group Publishing]]|pages=1–18|doi=10.1108/EEMCS-10-2013-0199}}</ref>