About Bits And Pieces Of Ballpoints

[sciumbasci]

Often, I see discussion of who makes their own nibs in house, and who outsources from Bock or Jowo. Who makes the converters for who, who designs their own feeds and so on.

 

Recently, I have read anew the article regarding China achieving independence from foreign imports, regarding the balls of ballpoint pens.

This, of course, had me wondering: who makes their own refills, and who outsources from who?

I seem to remember that one big company of refills is Schimdt, which also supplies Private Reserve for their own refills line. Is this the norm, or other manufacturers have the means necessary to make their own refills in house?

 

And, most importantly, is there any way to tell?

[Aramchek]

Ballograf make their own proprietary ballpoint refills and used to manufacture Parker style refills as well.

 

Schmidt is probably the biggest western manufacturer of OEM refills. Another one is the Swiss company Starminen.

 

I seem to recall that Caran d'Ache manfacture their own refills but I'm not 100% sure.

[sciumbasci]

Most interesting!

I seem to recall that the biggest gripe of Chinese industrials was that they had to import the tips from Switzerland, in fact, as they lacked the machineries to do so.

 

While I have no doubt Bic makes everything in house, I do wonder if Parker, Waterman, Sheaffer, or Fisher just to name a few make their own refills or outsource them.

 

Regarding Fisher, there is a video on YouTube, part of the series "How it's made" that shows they pressurise the refill themselves, but doesn't show much more.

[MYU]

Interesting topic. I remember seeing a documentary quite some years ago, about the evolution of writing instruments. There was a very short mention of ballpoint tips, how there's some special patent for it and a large number of vendors would have to license it to make their own. But I'd expect with the lax nature of the US patent office into the 2000's, that some companies came up with their own variants. From what I recall, a lot of big name pen companies would simply outsource the refills to save on costs.

[qvxb]

About bits and pieces from 1964.

 

https://playback.fm/charts/top-100-songs/video/1964/Dave-Clark-Five-Bits--Pieces

[aurore]

Caran d'Ache blue ink is of a rather unusual colour (very true blue), I have never seen the same in any other refill, so I would guess they manufacture it themselves.

Many companies outsource from Schmidt (and those are quite nice refills).

Schneider (Germany) makes rather cheap pens but quite nice refills with a hybrid ink.

There are also some Japanese refills. Pentel (haven't tried yet). Tombow (quite decent but nothing to write home about). And also some Japanese company makes them for Faber-Castell (Faber-Castell outsources refills from Switzerland (good) / Japan (mediocre) / China (below average).

 

Pelikan has got nice refill but I am unsure whether or not they make them or outsource.

Koh-i-noor (Czech brand) sells refills (Parker style) under their brand, they are ridiculously cheap in Czech Republic (30c), I guess they are made in China. Nothing great tbh but for 30c... decent. So I would guess you can get a Parker style refill in China very cheap, it won't be good as Caran d'Ache but 50 times cheaper

Edited March 24, 2018 by aurore