Retractable pens - Retractable ballpoint pens
Everyone has used a retractable pen here and there and I have always wondered how in the world the people 100 years back ever get through the day without them. Retractable pens are very convenient to use and with one click of your thumb up all point will go inside the pen. This tiny little invention enables people to take their retractable pens with them anywhere in the world. You can put them away in your pants pocket, tuck them away in your shirt pocket, or just conveniently put them away in a small storage box. Either way, retractable pens have become a staple in our society today. Even though retractable ballpoint pens were made popular in the late 1970s to 1980's it didn't really take off until the 1990s but became popular pen of choice for over 26% of pen users in 2005. They used to be a lot more expensive than they are today, but now retractable ballpoint pens are the craze in almost any and every industry and are used by almost every age group and economic bracket.
Retractable pens are great gift to give to almost anyone from your very funny grandfather to your loving wife these pens make a very functional gift that will last almost a lifetime. Retractable pens also have a very great commercial function. When they first started to become mass-produced in the late 1980s a companies started to understand the potential that these retractable ballpoint pens would offer but they didn't become truly affordable on a commercial level until the mid-1990s. As soon as the price level of retractable pens on a volume basis became cheap enough for these companies to afford they started to mass produce them and put their company logos around the body of the pen itself. Now if you wanted a more regal and stylish pen you could always opt for the fountain, but on a day-to-day basis nothing could beat the retractable pen and like the Energizer Bunny it could usually take a licking and keep on ticking. Retractable pens became so popular at one point that even pencil companies started to produce retractable pencils. Retractable pencils never reached the popularity status of retractable ballpoint pens but they usually serve their purpose in certain niches like for example college students that were well off in big universities that needed a stylish pencil.
I still remember growing up during the 1970s and during this time retractable ballpoint pens were a rarity and when I received one I usually put in the way it a very safe place because for some reason I loved clicking on that pen just to hear it click. What made this all happen was a very simple spring-loaded device that either the head of the pen at the forefront of the body or one click brought it back to place. I wonder if the person that invented the ballpoint pen ever received the fame and money that the patent maker probably received but that is something we will probably never know. It will be a very long time before something replaces the retractable pen or ballpoint pen but my guess is that it will probably happen in the future and nanotechnology will probably make this change happen as many years later down the road this new technology will enable us to create new kinds of ink and new kinds of materials that will be used to write with this kind of new ink, but for the foreseeable future retractable pens will remain a staple in our society.