Throughout the 19th century, engineers pondered how to create a pen that did not need to be constantly dipped in ink. And finally, in 1884, a fountain pen was born, which included a special ink reservoir connected to the nib by grooves. The grooves carried ink to the pen, which was equipped with a round hole in the middle to reduce the number of blots. Invented in 1938 ballpoint pens. It all started when a journalist from Hungary, Ladislo Biro, drew attention to the fact that newspaper ink dries much faster than regular ink. However, it was impossible to use newspaper ink for pens due to its excessive thickness. Then Biro decided to improve the pen so that it would be suitable for writing with very thick ink. Ladislo Biro created a tube pen with a miniature ball at the end of the shaft. This is how ballpoint pens came into being. The essence of the ballpoint pen mechanism is that at the moment when the ball moves across the paper, it rotates and captures the thick ink contained in the rod. Even the very first ballpoint pens had the ability to leave a mark six kilometers long. Entrepreneurs from England became interested in Biro's invention and bought a patent from him for the production of ballpoint pens, adapting them to the needs of aviation. 
Despite the fact that it was Biro who invented the ballpoint pen, the world remembers another person more - George Stafford Parker, who worked as a pen sales agent. Customers often complained to Parker about the quality of the goods he sold. Parker didn't like this very much, and he decided to make his own pen, which could no longer cause any complaints. Parker was successful, and very soon he opened his own production of ballpoint pens. In addition to writing instruments, in the website store you can purchase Casio watches, reviews of which confirm the ideal price-quality ratio of these watches, as well as Swiss Tissot watches. In the Soviet Union, the first ballpoint pens appeared after the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet government asked Mr. Parker to organize the production of pens on the territory of the Union. The choice of Parker was determined by the fact that the Parker pen was in the hands of General Eisenhower when he signed the act of surrender of Nazi Germany. 
Parker did not want to cooperate with Stalin, and Soviet engineers had to do everything on their own. As ink, Soviet specialists decided to use a mixture that was customary in those days to fight flies - a mixture of rosin and castor oil. In 1949, the production of Soviet ballpoint pens was launched. For a long time, ballpoint pens were quite an expensive product. Prices fell in 1958 when a French entrepreneur named Bic created a new type of disposable ballpoint pen, BIC. The pens were cheap, easy to use, quite reliable and could write on almost all types of paper. With the advent of BIC pens, ballpoint pens have become a consumer product. Today, ballpoint pens with inks of all colors of the rainbow are produced around the world. At the same time, black remains the most favorite color. Next comes blue, and then red and green.
Colored pencils. Large set of colored pencils “Painting” from the Sacco and Vanzetti factory. The pencils in the small sets are made of some vague synthetic material. The collet ones were also produced for colored leads (larger in diameter); instead of the lead, you could insert a rod and use it as a ballpoint pen.
Plastic pencil case. Makes a gorgeous “click” sound when opened sharply. 
Pencil boxing 
The side walls and partition of the pencil case are wooden, and the bottom and lid are made of plastic, which was used to cover the lids of desks. I received this as a gift for my kindergarten graduation, only the ridiculous picture on the lid was different.
"Push-button" handles. The rod is short and has a protrusion for the spring. If necessary, such a rod was inserted into a regular handle, equipped with an “extension” made from a match.
Ballpoint pens. Along the edges of the handles are among the most inexpensive ones, which were most often supplied to primary schoolchildren, the second one on the left differs in the proportions of the halves - it unscrews almost in half. The third one from the left is a pen from a notebook or something. Under the short rod. It was possible to use a short rod from a “push-button” one.
Ink pens. In the late eighties, these were found only at the post office and in savings banks, where they filled out receipts. And when publishing “wall newspapers” - then instead of a regular pen they used the so-called. posters like the one on the second from the left. Fountain pens are still used today, and Rainbow ink is still produced.
Pencils. On the left are collet pencils. On the right is chemical - when wet, the lead turns blue. The second from the right is a pencil with an eraser; it is slightly larger in diameter than ordinary pencils.
The legendary Czechoslovakian kohinor.
Fashionable pencil case with Velcro. Mostly, pencil cases of this type were red, and instead of Velcro, it was closed with a strap that quickly came off.
Wooden rulers.
“Special” rulers: logarithmic and crossbar. Inside there is a metal rod with a notch, which in the window shows the distance by which the ruler was moved up or down.
Set of drawing accessories. 
Paper clips, buttons and hole punch
Officer's line. Nowadays they make these too, but before they were made from QUICK BURNER™! It was convenient to use in Russian lessons, emphasizing with a wavy line some parts of speech. I don’t know if they were popular in regular schools - in our class there were mostly military children. Larger “marine” rulers with a different set of “symbols” were also produced; I also shot one for artifacts 76-82.
Drawing set from the 70s.
Calculators)
All sorts of other rulers, protractors, patterns, stencils, etc.
Scissors with a cover.
And these are font stencils. Available in different sizes. The smallest letters were of a different type than the larger ones.
Folders for papers.
In Soviet schools, everything was not quite the same as in modern ones. For example, children were prohibited from using ballpoint pens. This was not done just like that and not on someone’s evil whim.
However, all this is far from the only thing that will seem quite strange to modern people in the education system of that time.
1. No pens
Calligraphy in the Soviet school
Until the early 1970s, it was forbidden to write with ballpoint pens in primary grades in USSR schools. Instead, the children used fountain pens. This was done to develop beautiful, legible handwriting. There were even special calligraphy lessons in schools. However, already in 1968 the situation began to change. The volume of the school curriculum was constantly growing, and therefore penmanship and “quills” were abandoned in favor of more important subjects. However, penmanship remained as a 5-minute exercise as part of language lessons.
2. Day of Knowledge
In fact, “Day of Knowledge” appeared quite recently. This happened only in 1980, after a corresponding decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and specifically - decree No. 3018-X “On holidays and memorable days.” After this, September 1 became a solemn day, but not a holiday or a day off. The Day of Knowledge itself was designated as a holiday only in 1984.
3. Bell
The bell began to be used as the main symbol of the beginning of classes in Soviet times. As you might guess, the bell symbolizes the school bell. At first they used it only on September 1, but later they began to ring the bell on the last day of school, before the holidays. Despite the fact that “Knowledge Day” appeared only in the 1980s, the first day of school was previously accompanied by ceremonial and musical events. Bringing flowers to teachers is also one of the oldest Soviet traditions.
4. School chic
From September 1, all students were required to wear school uniforms (only for classes). Schools strictly monitored the appearance of students until Perestroika. Boys were required to wear white shirts and formal trousers, while girls wore skirts (the length of which was also monitored) and white aprons. One of the few things that was not regulated in any way were bows for girls. Any one could be tied. The ability to make a huge “rose” from white chiffon was considered especially chic.
This pen is already half a century old.
Ballpoint pens appeared in the West before World War II. But they, of course, came to our country with a significant delay. Over the hill they were already switching to pagers and computers, but here, as usual, they were trying to reinvent the wheel, that is, our Soviet ballpoint pen.
In fairness, it should be noted that doing this simple thing was not so easy. The first attempts were made in 1949, but were not particularly successful. The balls turned out to be not balls at all, but arbitrary geometric bodies, and the ink was a substance with unpredictable properties. Time passed, our scientists racked their brains: how could this be? Eisenhower signs “Parkers”, but for 5 years we have not been able to create anything worthy! Our homeland was saved by another Kulibin, who proposed an original chemical formula that Western scientists never thought of: castor oil + rosin = ink. Not God knows what the formula is, but it’s also not bad. In general, by 1965, things started to improve, and ballpoint pens began to be produced more or less en masse, using Swiss equipment.
During these years, special pens were developed for writing in zero gravity, which were used by cosmonauts on the spacecraft SOYUZ-3 and SOYUZ-4, the first domestic felt-tip pens, and special writing units (pyrographs) for the recording equipment of power plants were developed.
The principle of operation of a ballpoint pen is very simple. The channel through which the ink passes is blocked at the end by a metal ball, which must be wetted by the ink. A small gap between the ball and the walls allows it to rotate and leave a mark on the paper.
Currently, the principle of a ballpoint pen is used in other devices - for example, in a roll-on deodorant or a tube of glue.
In the magazine "Science and Life" the section "Little Tricks" gave advice on how to repair ballpoint pens.
For example, Treatment of a staining rod.
After repeatedly refilling the refill of a ballpoint pen, the gap between the edges of the refill and the ball increases and the pen begins to write worse - it gets dirty. This defect will disappear if the end of the rod is crimped. The simplest “crimp” can be a push pin stuck into wood. Place the end of the angled rod in the corner of the button cutout and rotate it using light pressure
Storing ballpoint pen refills.
A supply of ballpoint pen refills can be stored for years in a test tube with a tight stopper without fear of the paste drying out. If dried rods are placed in a test tube with fresh rods, they soon restore their properties.
Once upon a time, we “treated” a pen like this: we took it apart, took the refill and tore off the pen directly with our teeth, carefully blew into the refill, inserted the pen back into the refill, assembled the pen and continued writing. Ink marks remained in the corner of his mouth. I don't remember anyone being poisoned by them.
Channel 5 has a wonderful short video about the first ballpoint pens in the USSR. I highly recommend watching it, it helps you get into the atmosphere that reigned in the ballpoint pen industry in those years.
Petersburg speaks and shows Original »
It is believed that when ballpoint pens became widely available, they were prohibited from writing in schools. What the logic is here is not entirely clear. Maybe there were even more blots from them than from fountain pens, maybe “the handwriting was losing its individuality,” or maybe it was some other misfortune. But it was, it was so - it’s not for us to judge. New pens began to be used en masse around 1970.
To my question, my dad replied that he wrote with a ballpoint pen in high school - this was in the late 60s. I haven't heard about the ban. First-graders did not write with a ballpoint pen, because such pens were not often on sale, at least in Ryazan. They cost 2 rubles - not cheap at that time. For a first-grader, this is a luxury.
Then there was a subject - calligraphy or "writing". We learned to write letters with a pen. When in the first grades they taught to write with fountain pens, they did it for a reason, but with the goal of positioning the hand correctly. After all, if you hold a fountain pen incorrectly, it simply won’t write.
They taught how to write with the so-called “simple pen”: a wooden round painted stick with a metal clamp at one end into which a steel pen was inserted, and the pen was dipped into the inkwell.
It was necessary to monitor not only the correctness of the letter, but also the pressure of the pen in one or another part of the line: the thickness of the line depended on it. There were special notebooks “pre-filled” in a typographical way - copybooks, and in them there was space left for writing down one’s own achievements in calligraphy, and the exercises were done in ordinary notebooks with an oblique ruler. We wrote in copybooks for the entire first quarter, and only then were we assigned notebooks with a slanted line.
There were also mysterious non-spill inkwells. I couldn’t understand why the sippy cups were not covered with anything. This way, ink will spill through the hole and stain everything around! And they were also carried in satchels. I found a video.
Until the turn of the 70-80s, at post offices, in savings banks and in passport offices, government-issued simple fountain pens and inkwells were waiting for Soviet people on tables for filling out forms. The last time I saw them was at the Ryazan post office in the first half of the 80s. I tried to write on paper with them and it got dirty.
Recently they have been saying that it is better for children to learn to write with fountain pens. Why? There is such a theory - when using a pen, the hand is subject to less stress. Everyone who has used the pen notes that there is virtually no tension in the hand and wrist after long periods of continuous writing. In order for the ballpoint pen paste to leave a mark on the paper, you have to make an effort, put pressure on the pen, as a result, you want to quickly get rid of “writing” as an extremely tedious task. The pen, in turn, leaves a smooth and clear stroke on the paper, even with a light touch on the paper.
Svetagor in her blog cited an excerpt from the Internet about how someone’s son learned to write. He wrote clumsily with a ballpoint pen, like any first-grader. But he studied at a German school, and there is a rule there: for the first two years, schoolchildren write with a pencil, and for the rest of the eleven years of study, without fail, with a fountain pen. After finishing school, no one ever uses a fountain pen. The father decided to figure out why children should learn to write with a fuller (in German - a fountain pen). It’s as if children inevitably get used to writing beautifully.
The index finger bends strongly.
Fingers are more relaxed.
The most important advantage of a fountain pen is pressure sensitivity. Pressed more - the line turned out thicker. Let go a little - the line turned out to be thin. The fountain pen feels even a slight pressure (whereas a ballpoint pen would simply not be able to write with such a weak pressure). What does it mean? This means that when writing with a fountain pen, you can change the pressure applied. Draw the line down - press more. Draw the line up - press less. At the same time, our hand either tenses or relaxes. Relaxation releases tension.
Lines, letters, numbers written with a pen turn out smoother than if we wrote with a ballpoint pen. When writing slowly with a ballpoint pen (and all children start with slow writing), some irregularities, bumps, and lines “tremble” appear.
The disadvantages of a fountain pen include difficulty in handling. For example, the ink may dry out and it takes time to write with the pen. Also, the writing may be sloppy due to the fact that the pen is leaking. You may accidentally smear the line you just wrote, or the ink may bleed due to poor quality paper.
How did you write with a fountain pen at school?
In October 1888, John D. Loud from Massachusetts patented a curious invention. Calling it the first ballpoint pen is a stretch. It looked more like a marker with a large rotating ball at the end and was used for marking cows and sheep rather than for writing.
The very principle of a ball bathing one end in ink seemed promising, and over the next 30 years the US Patent Office issued another 350 patents using this idea. However, all the first ballpoint pens were no good. One of the main problems was poor ink, which was highly dependent on ambient temperature. As soon as the temperature dropped below 18 degrees, they froze, and as soon as it rose above 25 degrees, the ink began to flow.
The first more or less successful design of a ballpoint pen was offered to the world in 1938 by the Hungarians - brothers Laszlo and Georg Biro. Laszlo was a journalist and noticed how quickly printing ink dried. Having mixed it with ink, he poured the mixture into a tube. But this mixture was too thick for a fountain pen, so the pen was replaced with a rotating ball. At first, Biro's pen wrote vertically, until the brothers used a capillary system that allowed ink to move to the ball regardless of the position of the pen.
According to legend, at one of the Yugoslav resorts, the President of Argentina, Augusto Yusto, became interested in Biro’s invention. When World War II broke out, the brothers agreed to the president's offer to move to Argentina and begin factory production of new pens. The first batch was not particularly successful until the British Air Force drew attention to Biro's invention. It turned out that pilots need a pen that writes at any height and rarely charges! Great Britain buys a patent from Biro. The American company Eversharp acquired the same patent, but it turned out to be too late...
At that time, a patent registered in Argentina or Europe had no effect in the United States. An American traveling salesman from Chicago, Milton Reynolds, took advantage of this. While in Argentina, he drew attention to Biro's invention and, returning to the USA, found out that something similar had been patented by the above-mentioned Laud, but this patent had expired. Reynolds copies and patents Biro's pen. And already in 1944 he presented his products to the public in New York. For the presentation, he even hires a champion swimmer to demonstrate that pens can write even underwater. The entire presentation lot (10 thousand pieces for 12 dollars 50 cents) was sold on the first day!
Biro's attempts to defend his rights in an American court ended in nothing. Reynolds claimed that his pen was just a smaller copy of his compatriot Laud's invention.
The hype around ballpoint pens died down as quickly as it began. They remained just as unreliable and often leaked and smeared. In 1945, Biro sold the patent to another person - a Frenchman from an impoverished baronial family, Marcel Bichoux. Biche, together with his friend E. Bouffard, rents a production facility in the suburbs of Paris and sets the task of creating the best (ballpoint) pen. The starting capital of two enthusiasts was one thousand dollars.
At first, Bish bought all kinds of ballpoint pens and studied them carefully. In addition, during the development, the inventor came up with an idea: since 80% of the cost of the pen was in the refill, wouldn’t it be more convenient to produce disposable pens from light and cheap plastic. The idea of disposability was good because pens often tend to get lost and very quickly take on a “shabby” look. At the same time, Bish always said: “A disposable pen should not be semi-disposable. She must live her only life with brilliance.” As a result of experiments in 1953, the famous Regular hexagonal pen made of transparent plastic was born, which wrote softly and accurately. But for advertising purposes, the innovator changed the spelling of his surname “Bich” to a simpler and now well-known one - “Bic”. Subsequently, Bic also became famous for producing disposable lighters and razors.
There were no competitors to the Bic ballpoint pen, which combined low price and high quality (“cheap and cheerful”), neither in the Old nor in the New World. Baron Bisch managed to squeeze into the American market only in 1958, when he bought out the famous Waterman Pen Company. Until now, Bic controls 70% of the European market and a third of the US market for the sale of ballpoint pens.
Ballpoint pens became widespread in the USSR in the late 60s, but for a long time they were not accepted for use by Soviet schoolchildren. At first, the quality of such writing instruments left much to be desired. For a long time, the use of ballpoint pens was very unfriendly in Soviet schools. At first it was forbidden to write with them at all, then it was allowed only in high school, when the student’s handwriting had already formed. But the main reason for refusing to use ballpoint pens was the struggle for the calligraphic handwriting of Soviet students. It was believed that since it is impossible to write “with pressure” with a ballpoint pen, then you will not achieve good handwriting.
Until the early 70s, schoolchildren in the USSR used quills with non-spill inkwells and later - fountain pens filled with ink from factory bottles. If the teacher noticed that the text in the notebook was written with a ballpoint pen, he could give the student a “two” as for unfinished work. But you can't stop progress. In the mid-1970s, schools switched entirely to ballpoint pens, which were now praised for their "speed of writing" and ease of use. History repeats itself...
“The teacher was a nervous person. He snatched the fountain pen from me and threw it out the window.
“Bring your parents,” he said, throwing me out of the classroom.
My crime was serious. I dared to write with the “eternal pen,” and this was strictly prohibited. Because fountain pens ruin handwriting.
“Eternal feathers” were rare and expensive back then. But I got it myself, making three or four broken ones from the debris.
...This is how this story would have ended if twenty-five years later I had not been called to school to talk about my son’s behavior. And his class teacher told me:
Schoolchildren are prohibited from writing with ballpoint pens. Ballpoint pens ruin handwriting. Let him write with an ordinary fountain pen, like everyone else!”
(E. Chukovsky “The Eternal Feather”)
What do experts say? They look deeper into the issue. According to the director of Moscow school No. 760 Garmash, Soviet bans on the use of ballpoint pens were intended not only to develop beautiful handwriting in a child, but also to provide optimal conditions for his psychophysical development.
Doctors have drawn conclusions that are not in favor of ballpoint pens for young children: when writing like this, the child experiences breath holding and heart rhythm disturbances. In addition, a junior student can write continuously with a ballpoint pen in this mode for up to 20 minutes, which has an adverse effect on his health. When writing with a ballpoint pen, the muscles of the student’s back and abdomen are tense, which causes the child’s motor skills to suffer. Largely as a result of this forced constraint, many childhood diseases arise and the educational and cognitive capabilities of children are reduced.
Another authoritative specialist in the field of domestic pedagogy and medicine, Doctor of Medical Sciences, honorary worker of general education V.F. Bazarny, agrees with this. Refusal to use fountain pens in Soviet schools was the wrong decision: these writing instruments are optimally suited for the development of certain skills in a child at school and, moreover, the process of writing with a fountain pen takes place in unison with the psychophysical activity of the student. Firstly, using a fountain pen initially “positions” the child’s hand correctly, and secondly, the vital rhythms of the body - brain impulses, heartbeat, breathing rate - proceed at the same frequency as the process of pulse-pressure calligraphic writing with such a device.
What pen did you learn to write with?
