Today in History—October 29: The Ballpoint Pen Arrives

It wasn’t for everyone—or maybe it was.

With some 5,000 people showing up at Gimbels department store in New York City on October 29, 1945, it seemed that the Reynolds Rocket, the first ballpoint pen to be sold commercially in the United States, was exactly what everyone needed.

At $12.50, the pen was far from inexpensive. (That’s about $230 today!) Nonetheless, it was an instant sensation, with about 30,000 sold the first week that it became available at Gimbels.

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The Reynolds Rocket was not the first ballpoint pen. In 1938 Hungarian journalist László Bíró, fed up with the constant need to refill fountain pens and deal with their messy ink, patented a novel design. With the assistance of his brother and chemist György, he invented a writing instrument that employed a tiny metal ball at its tip. The design allowed the ball to roll freely, becoming coated in ink from a reservoir in the pen’s barrel and then transferring the ink to paper as it moved across the surface.

By 1944 the Bíró brothers’ pen, known as the Birome, had gained popularity in Argentina. While visiting there, American businessman Milton Reynolds came across the instrument. Upon his return to the United States, he set out to make his own version.

He did so as quickly as possible—before the Birome had a chance to reach the U.S. market.

Reynolds understood how to sell the new pen, too, with advertisements promising an avant-garde writing utensil, capable of enduring long stretches of writing with no need to replenish the ink. Consumers were captivated by the idea.

But the Rocket was not all that great. Not only was it expensive, it leaked and sometimes failed to write.

Subsequent designs addressed these flaws, and eventually less-pricey options became available.