There are three inevitabilities we will experience during our time on this mortal coil: we are born, we will die, and sometime in between, we will use a BIC Cristal pen. The company claims to have sold over 100 billion of dirt-cheap pen since the design launched in 1950.
Despite its humble price, the Cristal is a bonafide design icon. The pen is on permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art and was revolutionary for its time. The hexagonal shape, modeled after a wooden pencil, provided better grip and wouldn’t roll from a tabletop. And assuming you could hold on to one long enough to be concerned about it running out of ink, the transparent fuselage easily showed the user how much ink was left inside. Few manage such a feat. This is the downfall of the BIC Cristal.
Cheap, disposable pens can bring out a lot of bad habits. We lose them, we chew on them and we toss them in the trash without a second thought. This is before considering that the cheap pen, while plenty useful, isn’t all that special to write with.
Enter, the moderate upgrade. We’re not talking three-figure Montblanc’s and gold-nibbed Parkers. There is a whole world of high-end ballpoints under the $20 mark. A fair bit more than a $3 package of BIC Cristals, for sure, but between their high-quality builds and refillable cartridges, they’ll last you eons longer. These are the best upgrades to your cheap pen collection.
OHTO Horizon
OHTO was established in Japan in 1929 and started making ballpoints 20 years later, so even if you haven’t heard of it, know it isn’t a spring chicken when it comes to the writing utensil game. OHTO’s well-known for making fine-tipped writers (including the absurdly slim Minimo), and the Horizon is no different coming stock with a 0.7mm tip and cartridge nestled in its sleek, aluminum barrel. Better still is the fact that the pen will take a multitude of cartridge refills, including Pilot’s Hi-Tec-C, revered among pen nerds for its smooth, consistent writing action and needle-thin tip.
