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63-748: A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper , for writing or drawing . Early pens such as reed pens , quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity that had to be periodically recharged by dipping the tip of the pen into an inkwell . Today, such pens find only a small number of specialized uses, such as in illustration and calligraphy . Reed pens, quill pens and dip pens, which were used for writing, have been replaced by ballpoint pens, rollerball pens, fountain pens and felt or ceramic tip pens. Ruling pens, which were used for technical drawing and cartography , have been replaced by technical pens such as

126-466: A biro in many Commonwealth countries) and the felt tip pen . Both of these have subtypes which are popularly called by their own specific names, usually based on the type of their ink, such as the fluorescent highlighter , the rollerball pen , and the gel pen . Unlike the construction of a traditional wooden pencil around a solid graphite core, a mechanical pencil feeds a small, mobile piece of graphite through its tip. An internal mechanism controls

189-440: A trichloroanisole (TCA) free seal, but they also reduce the oxygen transfer rate between the bottle and the atmosphere to almost zero, which can lead to a reduction in the quality of the wine. TCA is the main documented cause of cork taint in wine. However, some in the wine industry say natural cork stoppers are important because they allow oxygen to interact with wine for proper aging, and are best suited for wines purchased with

252-413: A cork placed inside the neck of a wine bottle is 350-year-old technology, it is logical to explore other more modern and precise methods of keeping wine safe. The study "Analysis of the life cycle of Cork, Aluminum and Plastic Wine Closures," conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and commissioned by a major cork manufacturer, Amorim , concluded that cork is the most environmentally responsible stopper, in

315-580: A cork stopper. For example, to produce 1,000 cork stoppers 1.5 kg CO 2 are emitted, but to produce the same amount of plastic stoppers 14 kg of CO 2 are emitted and for the same amount of aluminium screw caps 37 kg CO 2 are emitted. The Chinese cork oak is native to East Asia and is cultivated in a limited extent in China; the cork produced is considered inferior to Q. suber and are used to produce agglomerated cork products. The so-called "cork trees" ( Phellodendron ) are unrelated to

378-570: A decline in use as wine-stoppers due to the increase in the use of synthetic alternatives, cork wine-stoppers are making a comeback and currently represent approximately 60% of wine-stoppers in 2016. Because of the cellular structure of cork, it is easily compressed upon insertion into a bottle and will expand to form a tight seal. The interior diameter of the neck of glass bottles tends to be inconsistent, making this ability to seal through variable contraction and expansion an important attribute. However, unavoidable natural flaws, channels, and cracks in

441-667: A pen made from two quills. One quill served as a reservoir for ink inside the other quill. The ink was sealed inside the quill with cork . Ink was squeezed through a small hole to the writing point. In 1809, Bartholomew Folsch received a patent in England for a pen with an ink reservoir. A student in Paris , Romanian Petrache Poenaru invented a fountain pen that used a quill as an ink reservoir. The French Government patented this in May 1827. Fountain pen patents and production then increased in

504-466: A precursor of blotting paper, being a dispenser for powdery material for drying the paper. Stencils can be used to create standardised letters, patterns or signatures. There are also pencil sharpeners that can exclusively be used with wooden pencils. Cork (material) Cork is an impermeable buoyant material. It is the phellem layer of bark tissue which is harvested for commercial use primarily from Quercus suber (the cork oak), which

567-578: A reservoir dates back to the 10th century AD. In 953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz , the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt , demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib. This pen may have been a fountain pen, but its mechanism remains unknown, and only one record mentioning it has been found. A later reservoir pen was developed in 1636. In his Deliciae Physico-Mathematicae (1636), German inventor Daniel Schwenter described

630-508: A smaller population is the stylus used in conjunction with the slate for punching out the dots in Braille . An autonomous writing implement is one that cannot "run out"—the only way to render it useless is to destroy it. The oldest known examples were created by incising a flat surface with a rigid tool rather than applying pigment with a secondary object, e.g., Chinese jiaguwen carved into turtle shells. However, this may simply represent

693-481: A suitable material for fishing floats and buoys, as well as handles for fishing rods (as an alternative to neoprene ). Granules of cork can also be mixed into concrete . The composites made by mixing cork granules and cement have lower thermal conductivity, lower density, and good energy absorption. Some of the property ranges of the composites are density (400–1500 kg/m ), compressive strength (1–26 MPa), and flexural strength (0.5–4.0 MPa). As late as

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756-500: A surface. Initially, pens were made by slicing a suitable nib point from the end of a thin, hollow natural material which could retain a small reservoir of ink by capillary action . However, these ink reservoirs were relatively small, requiring the pen to be periodically dipped back into an external inkwell for replenishing. Reed pens were used by the ancient Egyptians to write on papyrus . Quill pens were standard in Europe and

819-436: A thin, lignin-rich middle lamella (internal primary wall), a thick secondary wall made up from alternating suberin and wax lamella, and a thin tertiary wall of polysaccharides. Some studies suggest that the secondary wall is lignified, and therefore, may not consist exclusively of suberin and waxes. The cells of cork are filled with a gas mixture similar to the air, making them behave as authentic "pads," which contributes to

882-425: Is a natural material used by humans for over 5,000 years. It is a material whose applications have been known since antiquity , especially in floating devices and as stopper for beverages , mainly wine , whose market, from the early twentieth century, had a massive expansion, particularly due to the development of several cork-based agglomerates. In China , Egypt , Babylon , and Persia from about 3000 BC, cork

945-766: Is a specific reference to quills in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville in the 7th century. Quill pens were still widely used in the eighteenth century, and were used to write and sign the Constitution of the United States in 1787. A copper nib was found in the ruins of Pompeii , showing that metal nibs were used in the year 79. There is also a reference to 'a silver pen to carry ink in', in Samuel Pepys ' diary for August 1663. 'New invented' metal pens are advertised in The Times in 1792. A metal pen point

1008-406: Is applied while writing. Although the invention of the typewriter and personal computer with the keyboard input method has offered another way to write, the pen is still the main means of writing. Many people like to use expensive types and brands of pens, including fountain pens, and these are sometimes regarded as a status symbol . Writing tool Another writing implement employed by

1071-416: Is closely linked to their physical existence. However, specialized accessories such as pencil sharpeners may be required to reshape the working end of the pigment core or to remove the outer casing from around the tip. These require the presence of an added pigment in order to write, and are useless when "empty". The pen is the most common form of writing implement. It has a hard tip which applies ink to

1134-423: Is gaining popularity as a non-allergenic, easy-to-handle and safe alternative to petrochemical-based insulation products. Cork is also used to make vinyl record slipmats, due to its ability to not attract dust. They also dampen static and vibrations. Sheets of cork, also often the by-product of stopper production, are used to make bulletin boards as well as floor and wall tiles . Cork's low density makes it

1197-413: Is native to southwest Europe and northwest Africa . Cork is composed of suberin , a hydrophobic substance. Because of its impermeable, buoyant, elastic, and fire retardant properties, it is used in a variety of products, the most common of which is wine stoppers . The montado landscape of Portugal produces approximately half of the cork harvested annually worldwide, with Corticeira Amorim being

1260-474: Is not considered to be the primary use of crayons. A wax pencil resembles both a crayon and a pencil in that it contains a brightly colored wax core within a protective paper casing, but its proportions are closer to that of a standard pencil. Wax pencils are primarily used to write onto nonporous surfaces such as porcelain or glass . Normal pencils, chalk, and crayons all share the characteristic that they cannot "run out". The useful life of these implements

1323-411: Is stacked in piles in the forest or in yards at a factory and traditionally left to dry, after which it can be loaded onto a truck and shipped to a processor. Bark from initial harvests can be used to make flooring, shoes, insulation and other industrial products. Subsequent extractions usually occur at intervals of nine years, though it can take up to thirteen for the cork to reach an acceptable size. If

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1386-694: Is still used in some parts of Pakistan by young students and is used to write on small wooden boards. The reed pen survived until papyrus was replaced as a writing surface by animal skins, vellum and parchment. The smoother surface of skin allowed finer, smaller writing with a quill pen, derived from the flight feather. The quill pen was used in Qumran, Judea to write some of the Dead Sea Scrolls , which date back to around 100 BC. The scrolls were written in Hebrew dialects with bird feathers or quills. There

1449-596: The Juncus maritimus or sea rush. In his book A History of Writing , Steven Roger Fischer suggests, on the basis of finds at Saqqara , that the reed pen might well have been used for writing on parchment as long ago as the First Dynasty, or around 3000 BC. Reed pens continued to be used until the Middle Ages , but were slowly replaced by quills from about the 7th century. The reed pen, made from reed or bamboo,

1512-560: The Rapidograph . All of these modern pens contain internal ink reservoirs, such that they do not need to be dipped in ink while writing. Pens commonly used today can be categorized based on the mechanism of the writing tip and the type of ink: These historic types of pens are no longer in common use as writing instruments, but may be used by calligraphers and other artists: Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens from

1575-420: The 1850s. The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issued on October 30, 1888, to John J Loud. In 1938, László Bíró , a Hungarian newspaper editor, with the help of his brother George, a chemist, began to design new types of pens, including one with a tiny ball in its tip that was free to turn in a socket. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on

1638-601: The Cork Supply Group of Portugal concluded that cork is the most environmentally friendly wine stopper in comparison to other alternatives. The Corticeira Amorim 's study, in particular ("Analysis of the life cycle of Cork, Aluminum and Plastic Wine Closures"), was developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers , according to ISO 14040 . Results concluded that, concerning the emission of greenhouse gases, each plastic stopper released 10 times more CO 2 , whilst an aluminium screw cap releases 26 times more CO 2 than does

1701-668: The Stelvin as it is a guarantee that the wine will be good even after many decades of ageing. Some consumers may have conceptions about screw caps being representative of lower quality wines, due to their cheaper price; however, in Australia, for example, much of the non-sparkling wine production now uses these Stelvin caps as a cork alternative, although some have recently switched back to cork citing issues using screw caps. The alternatives to cork have both advantages and disadvantages. For example, screwtops are generally considered to offer

1764-430: The United States up through the 18th and 19th centuries, and are still used in various contexts, such as calligraphy and formal settings such as major bank transactions. The most common quills were taken from the wings of geese or ravens , although the feathers of swans and peacocks were sometimes favored for prestige. A dip pen has a steel nib (the pen proper) and a pen-holder. Dip pens are very versatile, as

1827-527: The bark is stripped to harvest the cork. The tree continues to live and grow. The sustainability of production and the easy recycling of cork products and by-products are two of its most distinctive aspects. Cork oak forests also prevent desertification and are a particular habitat in the Iberian Peninsula and the refuge of various endangered species . Carbon footprint studies conducted by Corticeira Amorim , Oeneo Bouchage of France and

1890-536: The bark make the cork itself highly inconsistent. In a 2005 closure study, 45% of corks showed gas leakage during pressure testing both from the sides of the cork as well as through the cork body itself. Since the mid-1990s, a number of wine brands have switched to alternative wine closures such as plastic stoppers, screw caps , or other closures. During 1972 more than half of the Australian bottled wine went bad due to corking. A great deal of anger and suspicion

1953-555: The bristles into an external pool of ink on an inkstone , analogous to a traditional dip pen with an inkwell. Some companies now make " brush pens " which in that regard resemble a fountain pen, with an internal ink reservoir built into the handle which can be refilled with preloaded cartridges or a bottle-fill converter. Other implements indirectly associated with writing include erasers for pen and pencil, pencil sharpeners , pencil extenders , inkwells , blotter paper , and rulers and related drawing instruments . Pounce pots were

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2016-472: The brush is tipped with soft bristles. The bristles are gently swept across the paper with just enough pressure to allow ink to wick onto the surface, rather than mashing down the brush to the extent of substantial friction resistance. Although pens with semi-flexible nibs and liquid ink can also vary their stroke width depending on the degree of applied pressure, their variation range is far less obvious. Traditionally, brushes have been loaded with ink by dipping

2079-635: The capability of cork to recover after compression. There are about 2,200,000 hectares of cork oak ( Quercus suber ) forest in the Mediterranean basin , the native area of the species. The most extensively managed habitats are in Portugal (34%) and in Spain (27%). Annual production is about 300,000 tons; 49.6% from Portugal, 30.5% from Spain, 5.8% from Morocco , 4.9% from Algeria , 3.5% from Tunisia , 3.1% from Italy , and 2.6% from France . Once

2142-416: The cork are known as extractors . An extractor uses a very sharp axe to make two types of cuts on the tree: one horizontal cut around the plant, called a crown or necklace , at a height of about two to three times the circumference of the tree, and several vertical cuts called rulers or openings . This is the most delicate phase of the work because, even though cutting the cork requires significant force,

2205-552: The cork oak, they have corky bark but not thick enough for cork production. Cork is extracted only from early May to late August, when the cork can be separated from the tree without causing permanent damage. When the tree reaches 25–30 years of age and about 24 in (60 cm) in circumference, the cork can be removed for the first time. However, this first harvest almost always produces poor quality or virgin cork (Portuguese cortiça virgem ; Spanish corcho bornizo or corcho virgen ). The workers who specialize in removing

2268-406: The early 1970s. They use a mobile ball and liquid ink to produce a smoother line. Technological advances during the late 1980s and early 1990s have improved the roller ball's overall performance. A porous point pen contains a point made of some porous material such as felt or ceramic. A high quality drafting pen will usually have a ceramic tip, since this wears well and does not broaden when pressure

2331-475: The extractor must not damage the underlying phellogen or the tree will be harmed. To free the cork from the tree, the extractor pushes the handle of the axe into the rulers. A good extractor needs to use a firm but precise touch in order to free a large amount of cork without damaging the product or tree. These freed portions of the cork are called planks . The planks are usually carried off by hand since cork forests are rarely accessible to vehicles. The cork

2394-401: The ink from evaporating dry or wicking into the user's pocket. Depending on the design of the pen, the ink reservoir can be filled in several different ways: direct addition by eyedropper, suction from an internal mechanism, or disposable pre-filled cartridges. Some cartridge-based fountain pens can be fitted with "converters", which are separate piston/suction reservoirs of the same dimensions as

2457-428: The ink to leak when travelling by airplane. A large number of new pen types were popularized in the 20th century. Some of them are not constructed to be refilled with ink after they run dry; although others can theoretically have their internal ink compartment replaced, the widespread custom is to simply throw away the entire pen when its ink is no longer accessible. These types include the ballpoint pen (often called

2520-479: The intent to age. Stoppers which resemble natural cork very closely can be made by isolating the suberin component of the cork from the undesirable lignin , mixing it with the same substance used for contact lenses and an adhesive, and molding it into a standardized product, free of TCA or other undesirable substances. Composite corks with real cork veneers are used in cheaper wines. Celebrated Australian wine writer and critic James Halliday has written that since

2583-515: The leading company in the industry. Cork was examined microscopically by Robert Hooke , which led to his discovery and naming of the cell . Cork composition varies depending on geographic origin, climate and soil conditions, genetic origin, tree dimensions, age (virgin or reproduction), and growth conditions. However, in general, cork is made up of suberin (average of about 40%), lignin (22%), polysaccharides ( cellulose and hemicellulose ) (18%), extractables (15%) and others. Cork

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2646-434: The majority of people know cork for its use as stoppers in wine bottles . The innovation of using cork as stopper can be traced back to the late 17th century, attributed to Dom Pierre Pérignon . Cork stoppers were adopted in 1729 by Ruinart and in 1973 by Moët et Chandon . Cork presents a characteristic cellular structure in which the cells have usually a pentagonal or hexagonal shape. The cellular wall consists of

2709-462: The marks. Several other ancient cultures such as Mycenaean Greece also inscribed their records into clay tablets but did not routinely bake them; much of the Linear B corpus from Minoan Crete was accidentally preserved by a catastrophic fire which hard-baked those tablets. The Romans used lead styli with wax tablets which could be "erased" by rubbing the beeswax surface smooth again. In

2772-418: The mid-17th century, French vintners did not use cork stoppers, using instead oil-soaked rags stuffed into the necks of bottles. Wine corks can be made of either a single piece of cork, or composed of particles, as in champagne corks; corks made of granular particles are called "agglomerated corks". Natural cork closures are used for about 80% of the 20 billion bottles of wine produced each year. After

2835-547: The modern era, hand held computers and certain other computer input devices use a stylus to enter information onto a screen by applying pressure rather than by depositing pigment. Words and names are still commonly inscribed into commemorative objects, such as the engraved winners' names on the silver Stanley Cup or the Gettysburg Address carved into the stone wall of the Lincoln Memorial , but

2898-512: The paper. Bíró filed a British patent on June 15, 1938. In 1940, the Bíró brothers and a friend, Juan Jorge Meyne, moved to Argentina , fleeing Nazi Germany . On June 17, 1943, they filed for another patent. They formed "Bíró Pens of Argentina", and by the summer of 1943, the first commercial models were available. Erasable ballpoint pens were introduced by Paper Mate in 1979, when the Erasermate

2961-431: The pen's usual refill cartridge; these allow the pen to refill from bottled ink. Only certain types of ink can be used in a fountain pen, to avoid clogging up the nib unit mechanism. Although the larger reservoir of fountain pens requires less frequent ink replenishment, the ink may inconveniently spill out in certain contexts to stain the paper, fingers, or clothing of an unwary writer. Differences in air pressure may cause

3024-434: The pen-holder can accommodate a wide variety of nibs that are specialized for different purposes: copperplate writing, mapping pens, and five-pointed nibs for drawing music staves . They can be used with most types of ink, some of which are incompatible with other types of pen. Automatic pens are a category of dip pen, in which the nib is in two parts and can hold a larger quantity of ink. However, like all of its precursors,

3087-472: The position of the graphite by friction, so that although it remains steady while writing, the graphite can be advanced forward to compensate for gradual wear or retracted to protect it when not in use. The graphite in mechanical pencils is typically much narrower than in wooden pencils, frequently in sub-millimeter diameters. This makes them particularly useful for fine diagrams or small handwriting, although different sizes of refill leads cannot be interchanged in

3150-565: The product is of high quality it is known as gentle cork (Portuguese cortiça amadia , but also cortiça secundeira only if it is the second time; Spanish corcho segundero , also restricted to the second time ), and, ideally, is used to make stoppers for wine and champagne bottles. Cork's elasticity combined with its near-impermeability makes it suitable as a material for bottle stoppers , especially for wine bottles . Cork stoppers represent about 60% of all cork based production. Cork has an almost zero Poisson's ratio , which means

3213-497: The radius of a cork does not change significantly when squeezed or pulled. Cork is an excellent gasket material. Some carburetor float bowl gaskets are made of cork, for example. Cork is also an essential element in the production of badminton shuttlecocks . Cork's bubble-form structure and natural fire retardant make it suitable for acoustic and thermal insulation in house walls, floors, ceilings, and facades. The by-product of more lucrative stopper production, corkboard,

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3276-567: The relative durability of such artifacts rather than truly representing the evolution of techniques, as the meaningful application of pigment is attested in prehistoric cave paintings such as the ones at Lascaux . The ancient Sumerians and their successor cultures, such as the Babylonians , produced their cuneiform writing by pressing a triangular stylus into soft clay tablets, creating characteristic wedge-shaped marks. The clay tablets were then baked to harden them and permanently preserve

3339-467: The requisite tools are not exclusively considered to be writing instruments. The original form of "lead pencil " was the leaden stylus used by the ancient Romans, who also used it to write on wood or papyrus by leaving dark streaks where the soft metal rubbed off onto the surface. The concept has been revived in recent times as the core of the inkless pen : a lead-based metal alloy that leaves dark markings on paper by abrading small pieces of core onto

3402-494: The room. In the 19th century, and indeed well into the 20th century, when paper was less readily available, individual students also wrote with chalk on their own small slates . Both pencils and chalk exist in variants which can create marks in other colors, but colored pencils and colored chalk are generally considered to be art supplies rather than writing instruments. Similarly, although very young children may use colorful wax crayons to write words into their pictures, writing

3465-459: The same pencil unless it has been specially designed for that purpose. Although in Western civilization writing is usually done with some form of pencil or pen , other cultures have used other instruments. Chinese characters are traditionally written with a brush , which is perceived as lending itself to a graceful, flowing stroke. A brush differs from a pen in that instead of a rigid nib,

3528-412: The steel-nibbed dip pens had a limited ink reservoir and a tendency to drip inkblots on the page. The first modern fountain pens were developed in the 19th century, with functionally similar designs appearing as early as the 10th century. These consist of the nib unit, an ink reservoir chamber, and an external casing. The casing usually includes a cover for the nib, in order to protect its shape and keep

3591-411: The surface. However, most modern "lead pencils " have a nonpoisonous core of greyish-black graphite mixed with various proportions of clay for consistency, enclosed within an outer wooden casing to protect the fragile graphite from being snapped apart or from leaving marks on the user's hand. White chalk has been traditionally used in schoolrooms to write on a main blackboard at the front of

3654-421: The trees are about 25 years old the cork is traditionally stripped from the trunks every nine years, with the first two harvests generally producing lower quality cork ( male cork or virgin cork ). The trees live for about 300 years. The cork industry is generally regarded as environmentally friendly. Cork production is generally considered sustainable because the cork tree is not cut down to obtain cork; only

3717-618: The world at the time. This company, now called TOZ-Penkala , still exists today. "TOZ" stands for " Tvornica olovaka Zagreb ", meaning " Zagreb Pencil Factory". In the 1960s, the fiber- or felt-tipped pen was invented by Yukio Horie of the Tokyo Stationery Company, Japan . Paper Mate's Flair was among the first felt-tip pens to hit the U.S. market in the 1960s, and it has been the leader ever since. Marker pens and highlighters, both similar to felt pens, have become popular in recent times. Rollerball pens were introduced in

3780-435: Was already used for sealing containers , fishing equipment, and domestic applications. In ancient Greece (1600 to 1100 years BC) cork was used in footwear , to manufacture a type of sandals attached to the foot by straps, generally leather and with a sole in cork or leather. In the second century AD, a Greek physician, Dioscorides , noted several medical applications of cork, mainly for hair loss treatment. Nowadays,

3843-422: Was directed at Portuguese and Spanish cork suppliers who were suspected of deliberately supplying bad cork to non- EEC wine makers to help prevent cheap imports. Cheaper wine makers developed the aluminium "Stelvin" cap with a polypropylene stopper wad. More expensive wines and carbonated varieties continued to use cork, although much closer attention was paid to the quality. Even so, some high premium makers prefer

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3906-407: Was patented in 1803, but the patent was not commercially exploited. A patent for the manufacture of metal pens was advertised for sale by Bryan Donkin in 1811. John Mitchell of Birmingham started to mass-produce pens with metal nibs in 1822, and after that, the quality of steel nibs improved enough so that dip pens with metal nibs came into general use. The earliest historical record of a pen with

3969-540: Was put on the market. Slavoljub Eduard Penkala , a Croatian engineer and inventor, became renowned for further development of the mechanical pencil (1906) – then called an "automatic pencil" – and the first solid-ink fountain pen (1907). Collaborating with the Croatian entrepreneur Edmund Moster , he started the Penkala-Moster Company and built a pen-and-pencil factory that was one of the biggest in

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