greeneyedgirl
09-09-2005, 08:58 AM
makes ya wonder what has happened to all the used up Bic's, hu?
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Bic over the moon as sales top 100bn
Jon Henley in Paris
Friday September 9, 2005
The Guardian
Bic, the company that has made a fortune out of things to be thrown away, has sold its 100 billionth disposable ballpoint - selling an average of 57 pens every second since it was launched in 1950.
According to the company, that is enough pens to stretch 40 times the distance from the earth to the moon if laid end to end or to fill the Arc de Triomphe 23 times over.
The transparent Bic Cristal pen first went into production after the second world war when the company's founder, Baron Marcel Bich, bought a small factory outside Paris.
The baron and his partner Edouard Buffard had planned to manufacture fountain pens. But his son Bruno, who has since taken over the company, told Reuters that the close observation of a wheelbarrow prompted his father to change his mind.
"My father told me that one day he was pushing a wheelbarrow when it dawned on him that the ball was actually a multi-faceted wheel, and this was the best way to convey ink," he said.
"So he put all his investment into the ballpoint. He was the first to use precise production techniques."
Baron Bich's daring decision revolutionised the writing habits of the world. But cheap and effective did not always work: Bic disposable underwear and a Bic-brand perfume were failures.
============================================
Bic over the moon as sales top 100bn
Jon Henley in Paris
Friday September 9, 2005
The Guardian
Bic, the company that has made a fortune out of things to be thrown away, has sold its 100 billionth disposable ballpoint - selling an average of 57 pens every second since it was launched in 1950.
According to the company, that is enough pens to stretch 40 times the distance from the earth to the moon if laid end to end or to fill the Arc de Triomphe 23 times over.
The transparent Bic Cristal pen first went into production after the second world war when the company's founder, Baron Marcel Bich, bought a small factory outside Paris.
The baron and his partner Edouard Buffard had planned to manufacture fountain pens. But his son Bruno, who has since taken over the company, told Reuters that the close observation of a wheelbarrow prompted his father to change his mind.
"My father told me that one day he was pushing a wheelbarrow when it dawned on him that the ball was actually a multi-faceted wheel, and this was the best way to convey ink," he said.
"So he put all his investment into the ballpoint. He was the first to use precise production techniques."
Baron Bich's daring decision revolutionised the writing habits of the world. But cheap and effective did not always work: Bic disposable underwear and a Bic-brand perfume were failures.