The Museum of Modern Art in New York City recognised the Bic Cristal's industrial design by introducing it into the museum's permanent collection. The inventor of the Bic Cristal, _ Bich created an ink of a perfect _viscosity (or thickness) for his ballpoint pen. The age of the Bic Cristal’s design means that the pen is nicely built and, not surprisingly, is no longer the cheaper pen in Bic’s line. Bich developed a viscosity of ink which neither leaked nor clogged and, under a ballpoint pen patent licensed from Bíró, launched the Cristal in December 1950. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Bic Cristal's writing tip and ergonomic design helped shift the worldwide market for pens from fountain pens to ballpoints.

Its hexagonal form and design mimics a standard pencil and it is sold in six types of point and 18 colours around the world. Moreover, with the concept of handwriting generally under attack, we should be doing all we can to preserve it by promoting the entire range of writing tools available. In 1944, near the end of the Second World War, entrepreneur Marcel Bich bought a factory in Clichy, a suburb north of Paris, [2] and with business partner Edouard Buffard founded Société PPA (later Société Bic) in 1945. The Universal Typeface Project Averages the World's Handwriting to Produce an Incredibly Average Font". Finally, if the Bic Cristal interests you from a design or historical perspective, both Philip Hensher's The Missing Inkand James Ward's The Perfection of the Paper Clipdiscuss the history and development of the Bic ballpoint pen in some detail (as well as diving deep into other aspects of stationery minutiae).medium point will probably give you the smoothest writing experience, and is generally my recommended starting point. Since 1991 the pen's streamlined polypropylene cap has had a small hole to reduce the risk of suffocation if the cap is inhaled. While it’s not as common today as it once was (or at least that’s how it seems in the typical American office), it’s an iconic pen that still holds an important place in the history of writing instruments. There is also the Bic Cristal Vermeil, a gold-plated, metal version of the Bic released for commemorative purposes.

They don’t seem to be sold separately yet but presumably they will be sold independently of the pen.

Its hexagonal shape resembles the typical wooden pencil and grants strength and three grip points giving high writing stability. The thick ink flows down due to capillary action from the tube inside the barrel, to feed the ball bearing, which spins freely within a brass tip. The Cristal ReNew included two refills that appear to be standard Cristal refills, which are identical to the B3 refill standard.