Pencils and pens are ancient writing tools (which were first used some

5000 years ago) but are still used today despite the electronic
technology that we use for communication. Here you can read more
about history of pencils and other writing instruments, including
biography of prominent inventors, interesting facts and making process
of various writing tools.

Pen and Pencils History

Since we learned to talk, we tried to write what was said. We started with
images then simplified them until we came to words and letters. We
wrote these letters with crude tools which in time became more and
more perfect. Today we don’t use reed pens, but gel pens.

Pen and Pencils Inventors

Like many other inventions, ballpoint pen and fountain pen don’t have
just one inventor. But there is usually one name that made something as
we know it today and without whom we wouldn’t use it. Same was with
ballpoint and fountain pen.

Pen and Pencils Facts

Throughout the history, we made different pens and pencils to serve us
as we need them to. Today we have different types that we use for
writing, drawing or we don’t use them that much anymore because we
have better options.

Making Pen and Pencils

Ballpoint pens and pencils look like simple writing instruments: they have
pigment in their core and housing that protects the core from outer
elements and outer elements from being stained by the core. But they
are not that simple - otherwise, we would have got pencils and ballpoint
pens much earlier than we did.
Drawing Tools
Many drawing tools are used for drawing, draughting and design.
Drawing tools may be used for measurement and layout of drawing.
They include pens, pencils, rulers, compasses, protractors and other
drawing utilities.

Brief History
When information became too overwhelming so the humanity couldn’t
memories it all we began to write things. The first Neolithic writings date
from the 6th millennium BC. The first writings were carved into wood and
stone with stone and metal tools. Later we used styluses to write on wax
tablets, brushes, chalk, and quills. But two writing tools are still popular
today - pencil and pen (although most of the writing we do today is of
an electronic kind).

Pencil has a solid pigment core, usually in a protective casing made of

wood, plastic or paper. Its name comes from French “pincel” (meaning
“small paintbrush”), which in turn comes from Latin “penicillus” which
means a "little tail". History of a pencil began in early 16th century when
a large deposit of graphite was discovered in Cumbria, England. This
deposit was very pure and solid. It could be sawn into sticks without too
much problem, and people used it at first to mark sheep. Not know its
true nature, people thought that graphite was a form of lead and called
it “plumbago” (from Latin for "lead ore"). After it was discovered it was
used for cannonball molds and because of that, graphite mines were
owned and protected by Crown. First graphite sticks, earliest pencils,
were square in shape and wrapped in string or sheepskin because
graphite is brittle and not to leave marks on the user’s hand. England
held a monopoly on graphite pencils until the second part of 19th
century. Italian couple Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti invented first
wooden pencil in 1560. It was oval in shape and similar to today’s
carpentry pencil. A way of making pencils like we still do today (from two
wooden parts glued together with a graphite center) is invented shortly
after that. During the Napoleonic Wars France, unable to import graphite
from England or Germany, was forced to invent something else. Nicholas
Jacques Conté, an officer in Napoleon's army, mixed powdered graphite
with clay and burned it in a kiln in 1795. He got a mixture that could be
used as a core of pencils, shaped at will before burning and whose
hardness can be changed by controlling the ingredients in mixture (if the
mixture has more clay, pencil will be harder and its mark will be lighter).
The same method is used today. Hymen Lipman came to an idea to
attach an eraser to the end of a pencil in 1858. Today we have black
pencils but also those that have pigmented wax-based cores in different
colors. We also have solid graphite pencils that have no casings, grease
pencils that can write on any surface, charcoal pencils, sepia pencils,
white pencils and even watercolor pencils. Depending on their use we
have carpenter's pencils that are oval and cannot roll from the desk,
copying pencils that can be copied when moistened, and stenographer's
pencils that are very hard to break. Some people use pencil extenders if
they want to use their pencils when they become a stub.

Pens use ink to write on the surface and are ancient writing tools.They
appeared for the first time in Ancient Egypt where scribes used reed
pens to write on papyrus, and it is assumed that they date from about
3000 BC. Quills, pens made from flight feathers of large birds, appeared
in the 7th century although reed pens stayed popular until Middle Ages.
Modern metal pens appeared in the 18th century although, for instance,
a copper nib for a pen was found in the ruins of Pompeii. The first pens
with metal nibs were mass produced in 1822 by John Mitchell of
Birmingham. The quality of steel nibs improved in time and dip pens with
metal nibs became popular writing tool. These pens were dipped in ink
which stayed on the nib due to capillary action. But there were also pens
that had their reservoirs for ink and didn’t need to be dipped. They
appeared for the first time in the 10th century but didn’t become
popular until the 19th century and appearance of a fountain pen in
France. On October 30, 1888, John J. Loud patented ballpoint pen.
Slavoljub Eduard Penkala invented the first solid-ink fountain pen in
1907. László Bíró invented his ballpoint pen in 1938. Yukio Horie of the
Tokyo Stationery Company, Japan invented a variant of a pen with
reservoir - felt-tipped pen, in the 1960s which was a predecessor of
today’s marker pens and highlighters. Roller ball pens, which use ball
point writing mechanisms and water-based liquid or gelled ink, appeared
in the 1970s. The 1980s and ‘90s saw improvements in work of roller ball
pens as well as pens with porous points that have points that are made
of some porous material like felt or ceramic.