Fountain pens had a certain charm, but they could be messy and impractical. Their convenient replacement was the ballpoint pen. When first introduced to the writing scene in the early 20th century, it promised an end to the messy mishaps users of fountain pens often encountered.
The new invention solved this problem using a special viscous ink that dried quickly and didn’t smear. At the heart of it, the tiny rolling ball in the nib controlled the flow of ink, transferring just the right amount onto the page as you wrote.










