What did the original pen look like? How did it evolve?

The creation of the pen began with the history of its emergence and development. Generally speaking, the written history of human civilization is so long that the "pen" should be said to have a correspondingly long history. According to reports, when the ancients created characters, they began to use sharp stone tools, animal bones and branches to carve characters on stone walls, flat land, bark and Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which is probably the prototype of the pen. The earliest "ink" was the dark water and blood of animals found randomly. Later, man discovered metal and used it to make tools for production and life. Clever ancient Egyptians first made a nib out of copper and bound it in a wooden tube that could store ink. This is probably the earliest "fountain pen". Later, people used goose feathers, duck feathers and crow feathers to write on soft paper, which not only greatly accelerated the writing speed, but also played a connecting role in the history of pen development. In English, the pen "pen" directly borrows the Latin word "pen", which means feather. Since the industrial revolution, the British have developed pens with advanced production technology, and the materials, functions and types of pens have made remarkable progress. The first modern fountain pen we use today was invented by Americans in 1880. Americans use 14K gold iridium osmium as alloy nib, and hard glue as ink absorption tube and pen body, which makes the pen wear-resistant, smooth and portable.

The history of the invention of pencils can also be traced back to ancient times. It is generally believed that the ancestors of pencils were in England, but the word "pencil" in English comes from the ancient Roman word "Pencinus". You can also see the shadow of the Latin word "feather" here. It can be seen that the predecessor of the pencil is also a feather.

/kloc-In the middle of the 6th century, British shepherds picked up graphite from an open-air graphite mine, scribbled marks on the sheep, and wrapped it with ropes to prevent it from breaking and getting dirty. /kloc-In the mid-8th century, German chemists mixed graphite powder, sulfur, antimony and resin, which solved the problem that graphite was easily broken. Not long after, French chemist Nicholas was ordered by Napoleon to develop a graphite pen. He mixed appropriate clay into graphite and baked it into refills with different soft and hard depths. /kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, William Monroe of the United States used a machine to make holes and slots in the wooden strips, and then clamped the graphite pen core with two perforated wooden boards, thus inventing the first pencil with modern concept. According to the measured data standard, a standard pencil can draw a lead line about 22 kilometers long, and at least 45,000 words can be written and cut about 20 times. It is said that the inventor of the eraser for writing pencil tips became a millionaire because of his patent, which is naturally another interesting anecdote.

Ballpoint pen is also a big category of hard pen family, and at the same time, it is also the youngest. It was invented by Hungarian brothers Bailo and Georg in the late 1930s. However, the piston-type refill at that time had many shortcomings, so it was changed to a refill that sent ink according to the principle of capillary penetration. Later, the United States developed a pen that transports ink by gravity, and this ballpoint pen was quickly popularized and applied.