Editing Ballpoint pen (section)

===Postwar proliferation===
Following World War II, many companies vied to commercially produce their own ballpoint pen design. In post-war Argentina, success of the Birome ballpoint was limited, but in mid-1945, the ''Eversharp'' Co., a maker of [[mechanical pencil]]s, teamed up with [[Eberhard Faber]] Co. to license the rights from Birome for sales in the United States.<ref name="About"/><ref name="1940s"/>

During the same period, American entrepreneur [[Milton Reynolds]] came across a Birome ballpoint pen during a business trip to [[Buenos Aires]], Argentina.<ref name="About"/><ref name="1940s"/> Recognizing commercial potential, he purchased several ballpoint samples, returned to the United States, and founded ''[[Milton Reynolds#The Reynolds International Pen Company|Reynolds International Pen Company]]''. Reynolds bypassed the Birome patent with sufficient design alterations to obtain an American patent, beating Eversharp and other competitors to introduce the pen to the U.S. market.<ref name="About"/><ref name="1940s"/> Debuting at [[Gimbels]] department store in New York City on 29 October 1945,<ref name="1940s"/> for US$12.50 each (1945 US dollar value, about ${{Inflation|US|12.50|1945}} in {{Inflation-year|US}} dollars),<ref name="1940s"/> ''Reynolds Rocket'' became the first commercially successful ballpoint pen.<ref name="About"/><ref name="How ballpoints work"/><ref>{{cite book|title=Inventing the 20th century: 100 inventions that shaped the world|year=2002|publisher=NYU Press|author=Stephen Van Dulken|author2=Andrew Phillips|page=106}}</ref> Reynolds went to great extremes to market the pen, with great success; Gimbel's sold many thousands of pens within one week. In Britain, the Miles Martin pen company was producing the first commercially successful ballpoint pens there by the end of 1945.<ref name="About"/>

Neither Reynolds' nor Eversharp's ballpoint lived up to consumer expectations in America. Ballpoint pen sales peaked in 1946, and consumer interest subsequently plunged due to market-saturation.<ref name="1940s"/> By the early 1950s the ballpoint boom had subsided and Reynolds' company folded.<ref name="About"/>

[[Paper Mate]] pens, among the emerging ballpoint brands of the 1950s, bought the rights to distribute their own ballpoint pens in Canada.<ref name="intrigue"/> Facing concerns about ink-reliability, Paper Mate pioneered new ink formulas and advertised them as "banker-approved".<ref name="1940s"/> In 1954, [[Parker Pens]] released ''[[Jotter|The Jotter]]''—the company's first ballpoint—boasting additional features and technological advances which also included the use of tungsten-carbide textured ball-bearings in their pens.<ref name="About"/> In less than a year, Parker sold several million pens at prices between three and nine dollars.<ref name="About"/> In the 1960s, the failing [[Eversharp|Eversharp Co.]] sold its pen division to Parker and ultimately folded.<ref name="About"/>

[[Marcel Bich]] also introduced a ballpoint pen to the American marketplace in the 1950s, licensed from Bíró and based on the Argentine designs.<ref name="bpp encyc"/><ref name="Phaidon"/> Bich shortened his name to Bic in 1953, becoming the ballpoint brand now recognised globally.<ref name="How ballpoints work"/> Bic pens struggled until the company launched its "Writes The First Time, Every Time!" advertising campaign in the 1960s.<ref name="How ballpoints work"/> Competition during this era forced unit prices to drop considerably.<ref name="How ballpoints work"/>