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How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

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Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#71

Post by jonhohle »

Spartan-S63 wrote: post #50
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever tried writing a few pages with it? It requires too much pressure compared with gel pens, rollerball pens, let alone fountain pens (although the latter are not for everyone). It soon creates fatigue. And at least in my case I also make uglier handwriting with them that with gel pens, rollerball pens, let alone fountain pens. It's an extremely reliable product to do what it does, as well as extremely cheap, but fa…

So true. I hated using BIC ballpoint pens for this reason. I found the Pilot Rollerballs are my favorites to use. The 0.5mm size writes really smoothly. I picked up a couple bolt action pens for some more heft and put the Pilot rollerball fillers into the pen to get a really pleasant writing experience.

Did you know the inserts would fit prior to buying the pens? I love the Pilot V5 RT, but constantly have stains around my pockets from them deploying as I move. I don’t carry Precise V5s because I’ve had one too many explosions with them.

Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#72

Post by creaturemachine »

cogogo wrote: post #58
Anarch157a wrote: post #29

It's such a versatile product. I bet everyone here who's older than 45/50 have at least once used a Bic pen to rewind a cassete tape. I also used the plastic clip as a stapler remover. There were many other uses for it, for sure.

Never tried myself but I know they were used to defeat older U locks for bikes.

For that job you needed one of the opaque round ones with a more flexible plastic. It had to friction fit over the centre of the keyway so it could deliver some torque as you were working the tumblers.

Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#73

Post by somewhereoutth »

My thinking tool, along with a ream of 80gsm blank white printer paper.

As well as being ubiquitous, reliable and cheap, you can also vary the line weight it produces with pressure. This makes it great for sketches and diagrams, as well as straight writing.

Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#75

Post by QuercusMax »

Anarch157a wrote: post #29

It's such a versatile product. I bet everyone here who's older than 45/50 have at least once used a Bic pen to rewind a cassete tape. I also used the plastic clip as a stapler remover. There were many other uses for it, for sure.

I always just used a pencil.

Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#76

Post by williamdclt »

dist-epoch wrote: post #53
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

What's the proper name for that other, arguably even more well-recognized, BIC pen, that looks like Cristal except its main body is opaque orange, and is generally cheap garbage that breaks in your hand if you squeeze it it too hard, and doesn't even write half the time? (And yeah, I remember the taste of it, too. I've "eaten" through my share of these pens as a kid. It's the one pen you can't bite on, unless you lik…

BIC Orange fine. https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Orange-Original-Ballpoint-Point/d...

> made to last with enough ink to write for an average of 3,5 km

measuring ink capacity in km makes total sense but I find it hilarious

Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#77

Post by williamdclt »

Anarch157a wrote: post #29

It's such a versatile product. I bet everyone here who's older than 45/50 have at least once used a Bic pen to rewind a cassete tape. I also used the plastic clip as a stapler remover. There were many other uses for it, for sure.

cassettes were still popular 20y ago, you can probably take 15y off your estimate!

Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#78

Post by williamdclt »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #67
toss1 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked, their website lists 0.28 mm, 0.38, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 mm, with examples of each. [0] What pens do you find best and what is your use-case? [0] https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Uni-Jetstream-A-Comprehensive-G...

> Just checked, their website lists 0.28 mm, 0.38, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 mm, with examples of each. [0] Except that you forgot to check their website. Jetpens is a reseller. Uniball only acknowledges 0.5mm for Jetstream pens that include multiple ink tubes in one cylinder. My use case is that I carry a pen around in my pocket in case I need to write something down. More rarely, I might actually write something down. I do…

> Except that you forgot to check their website. Jetpens is a reseller.

I'm not sure what's your point. Uniball doesn't sell 0.5mm on their website, fine, but jetpens does. Is your point that Jetpens are selling fakes? Seems pretty unlikely.

Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#79

Post by quietbritishjim »

dist-epoch wrote: post #53
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

What's the proper name for that other, arguably even more well-recognized, BIC pen, that looks like Cristal except its main body is opaque orange, and is generally cheap garbage that breaks in your hand if you squeeze it it too hard, and doesn't even write half the time? (And yeah, I remember the taste of it, too. I've "eaten" through my share of these pens as a kid. It's the one pen you can't bite on, unless you lik…

BIC Orange fine. https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Orange-Original-Ballpoint-Point/d...

The box at your link calls it "Cristal fine Orange", so it's still a type of BIC Cristal like a sibling comment says.

Re: How the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen became ubiquitous

#80

Post by altairprime »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #66
jackstraw14 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jetstreams come in a lot of forms, including 0.5mm and 0.38mm I believe.

Not according to Uniball's official website they don't. https://www.unibrands.co/collections/jetstream?filter.v.opti...

The Jetstream Edge pen uses the same SXR refill size as the 4 colors of refills for the SXE3/MSXE5 multicolor pens; while their website only lists 0.28mm and 0.38mm refills as compatible, the SXR-80-05 refills are also compatible. But I suspect the reason they’re not formally listing 0.5mm support is because the lower-capacity SXR runs out of ink too rapidly when used in single-color 0.5mm, and so that’s why they cap the pen at 0.38mm. Recommend avoiding these as an option.

However!

The SXN-150 and SXN-155 lines deliver normal capacity 0.5mm Jetstream pens; and their SXR-5 refills deliver single-color 0.5mm Jetstream through the SXR-5 refills.

https://www.mp-uni.com/vn/en/product/jetstream-sport-sxn-155...

https://www.mp-uni.com/sg/product/refill-sxr-5/

You can search for the often-dehyphenated SXR-5 refill compatibility to see what pens they fit besides the official SXN-150 options (like, for example, the Pentel Energel); MP’s own website isn’t listing the options properly on the refill page — they only list the SXN-155/S and not the SXN-150/C, for example — so some footwork would remain to identify precisely which official model numbers are associated with the 0.5mm refill — e.g. the SXN-150 and SXN-157 bodies sold at JetPens are all 0.7mm/1.0mm but accept any SXR-# refill for # in { 38, 5, 7, 10 }. I suspect any SXN-xxx* body where x >= 150 is compatible with any SXR-y refill, since the discontinued SXN-100 seems not to be and the SXN-189DS seems to be.

Note that I found it rather difficult to locate the SXN-155 body by model number for shipping to the United States; the UPCs for whichever models you want, e.g. 4902778040737, were much more efficient in locating options.

TLDR: Yes, there are official Jetstream 0.5mm pens and refills, in addition to modding any SXR-refillable Jetstream with 0.5mm yourself.

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