This pen was decades ahead of its time. Made as cheaply as possible, just functional enough, disposable, and replaceable is the new standard for US commodities.
Why fix what’s cheap and barely does its job?
The kind of grace I yearn for in my performance reviews.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
It is broke though. Thing is shit. Dries up the nib, smudges, spurts. All round bad design
The nub drying is the no. 1 Problem with the thing. The amount of pens thrown away due to that problem is probably uncountable.
And yet people still buy them.
It does what it needs to, albeit poorly, for a handful of cents per pen. Once you start viewing them as disposable instead of trying to keep them until they’re out of ink, it makes more sense.
These are the pens put out where they’re going to get lost or taken, pocketed by the general public. I’d say their biggest flaw is that they don’t work on hard surfaces, so they suck for signing receipts on counters.
About the only thing they are good for is carbon copy paper. You have to press hard to make it work, and better pens tend not to like being pressed hard.
It’s also a use case that’s almost dead. Writing checks is a rarity, and most people only come across the odd contract like that once every few years, at best.
They’ve made more than 10 of these per human on the planet.
They were actually updated in mid 90s when they made the cap have a hole in it.
What was the idea behind the drastic change?
To prevent choking if it gets swallowed.
it’s been 74 years that guy can retire now
In this economy?
He had to have an operation 30 years ago and now is medically bankrupt and can’t retire
ah ok makes sense
At least take a potty break, ffs!
Why mess with perfection?
honestly, kinda refreshing to see a business not changing their shit constantly just to change shit. it’s not the nicest pen, but it works.
likewise, the uniball eco pen is the perfect pen for lefties.
Why does handedness matter?
Smudging
Ah, the extremely shitty pen that scratches so bad you might as well carve your message into the paper. Lasts maybe 3 lines before it starts skipping but who cares. It exists to be as cheap as possible so your customer you don’t respect can pocket it after initialing twice and signing something.
I hate bad cheap pens so much. I never would have gotten into fountain pens if there wasn’t the counter example of how bad a writing experience can get.
American bics may be made in a different way because here in Spain they are so reliable they are a de facto standard for people taking an exam.
Same in Brazil. The closest competitor, Compactor, will either smudge everything or fail twice as much as Bics.
Smudging inks mean they tend not to dry as fast. The downside of less-smudgy inks is that they dry out faster in the pen, gunk it up, and make ballpoints useless.
For filling in circles? Yeah, they’re fine. The circular movement tends to keep the ball moving and picking up new ink.
For writing? Hot garbage. When I switched to nicer pens (fountain pens and OHTO graphic liners), I had to unlearn pressing down so hard and cramping up my hand. A good pen can glide across the surface with little effort, and you don’t feel like you need to stretch your fingers and wrist afterward.
1-School and college exams in Europe are most usually in “write everything you know” mode.
2-You are clearly talking about some non-bic branded pens.
Yeah, no. People who like pens don’t touch Bic.
Fountain pens are the best. I got a Hero 616 off AliExpress for $0.36 on sale one time, and even that is better than a BIC. And my gold nib pens make BICs feel like I’m chiseling cuniform into stone tablets.
As a child I was labeled a bad writer because my writing was so sloppy it made a doctor’s prescription look like typed text. I’d always choose a pencil over a pen. Then in college a friend let me use their nice pen and I could write so much better. Turns out I was just always using the cheapest pens possible, and that sometimes quality does come at a cost worth paying.
I had a similar experience. And my hand always cramped up because I was putting a death grip on those cheap, skinny pens. Now, my wife has me fill out all the cards and gift tags at the holidays because I have “nice, fancy handwriting.” What a difference comfort, control, and fluidity make. I really enjoy slightly fatter pens, like a vintage Sheaffer’s oversized. Or a Platinum 3776. Not as big as a Montblanc 149, or a Wing Sung 630. Just a little on the chubby side. Way less cramping.
I think actual Bic-from-the-Bic-Company biros tend to be pretty good (especially the orange ones with black lids).
For a truly scratchy experience, you need a cheap, unbranded biro.
Biro is a brand
Its like googling something, i use the term even when i’m not on google. Biro is used as a generic term for pens a lot of the time.
In English, “biro” is the generic name for what is known elsewhere as a “ball-point” or “ball pen”. There may of course still be a “Biro” company somewhere, separate to that.
[Edit] I mean English as in “language spoken in England” - I’m sure some of the other “Englishes” use a different word.
This is why I got into fountain pens too! These days I find myself using a good rollerball or mechanical pencil for day to day, since they’re a little more practical, but man oh man I do love a fountain pen…
It’s extra nice when you have to sign something and pull it out. Did it at the dentist and it’s almost always a conversation starter.
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Lighters, razors and… uh, other things too.
Now I need a BIC boat to put my BIC pens and razors in.
Still tastes great
What? No app connectivity?!
You joke, but I have a cheap composition style notebook that I bought because it had a durable plastic cover instead of the old fashioned cardboard covered notebook I usually carry around. Each page has a qr code in the corner and it wants me to download an app so I can scan my writing and upload it to The Cloud.
I mean, I’m sure that someone might find that useful, but the whole reason I write with pen on paper is so I’m not distracted by technology and don’t have to worry about booting an app and having connectivity while constantly worried that my work may not be saved/disappear.
The plastic cover is nice, though.
However will they drive engagement?
A hole was added to the cap in 1991.
Wait, the hole in the cap is that recent?
Dude… That’s 34 years ago.
It would had cost you zero dollars to not murder Godort
smeagolnotlistening.gif
How dare you. I wont be 34 for 7 more months…
Yeah, I know I’m approaching fossil age, but the pen itself was first made 75 years ago. I had always assumed that the hole in the cap was a change made much closer to the 50s than sometime within my lifetime.
A very helpful comment
According to the Wikipedia article.
Was that to try and prevent choking?
Yes. From the BIC website:
Why is there a hole in the cap of BIC® Cristal® Pens?
Our vented caps comply with international safety standards ISO11540. These standards attempt to minimize the risk to children from accidental inhalation of pen caps. Traditionally the pen cap served only to protect the pen point. These vented caps allow more air to circulate around the pen point when the pen is capped. This further adds to the quality and overall performance of the pen.
So they dry up more quickly now? How is that supposed to add to the ‘performance’
As soon as the ball at the end rotates, you’ll get fresh ink again - the amount that dries at the very tip is miniscule. This change dries up the slight detritus that builds up around the tip, too - we used to wipe that off onto your other hand if it was the first bit of writing you were doing that day. But damn, that was a few years ago.
Oh, wow… I forgot all about that.
The guy on the line wants to stop the money printer? No, no no… you don’t change the top selling pen of the century. We can introduce a lighter though. Guess we’re doing fire now.
Maybe some razors.
