Invention of Ballpoint Pen

The ballpoint was invented in 1935 by Ladislas Bro and his brother Georg. Ladislas Biro was very talented and confident of his abilities, but he had never had a pursuit that kept his interest and earned him a good living. He had studied medicine, art, and hypnotism, and in 1935 he was editing a small newspaper-where he was frustrated by the amount of time he wasted filling fountain pens and cleaning up ink smudges.

Milton Reynolds fifty-four-year-old Chicago salesman became the first American manufacturer to market a ballpoint pen successfully. The first successful ballpoint came on an October morning in 1945. On that first day of sales, Gimbels sold out its entire stock of 10,000 pens-at $12.50 each!