Society and the erasable pen
Robin Young
'Would you', said the PR at the other end of the telephone, 'come with us to America to carry out an in-depth survey of the consumer implications of the erasable ballpoint Pen?' He had me at a disadvantage. I had never heard of the erasable ballpoint pen, but it sounded suspiciously like the square Wheel and the Mickey Mouse telephone. 'A scientist', he continued, more sternly now, 'has taken 16 years out of his life to perfect this latest advance in writing technology. It is the greatest thing since the invention of the ballpoint. It already commands one tenth of the total dollar expenditure on the whole writing instrument field in the United States.' He paused, but words did not spring readily to my mind. 'Banking authorities are seriously alarmed about it', he went on. 'It is a revolutionary concept Which literally threatens the very assumptions of confidence and trust on which the smooth operation of commerce and our society itself depend. We will be launching It here in September. We thought you would welcome the chance to forewarn and forearm the public.' It began to sound as if I was going to be invited to a private view of the Beast from the Bottom of the Bog, or at best a press conference at the Savoy Hotel. 'We shall be going for a week, visiting our production facility in Los Angeles and corporate headquarters in Boston. If you would like we could arrange to fly you to New York or Washington if there was anyone special you might wish to have discussions with the consumer organisations, the credit industry, the Senate, or .. 'Stop right there', I cried, before he could offer me the White llouse. 'If society itself is at stake, come,' In a trice I was at his office, pocketing a ?ample of the miraculous pen. Within the !lour my application for a visa was dropped to the appropriate box at the American embassy. For some reason I was called in !Or. a personal interview. 'Have you any ticket, letter of authority or documentation that will substantiate your claim to be a guest of Gillette?' the vice-consul at cubicle four asked me, with the air of a man who was not likely to accept lame excuses. 'I have nothing', I cried, 'but this' and I scribbled boldly on my application form which lay before him. Even Phil Silvers seldom looked so surprised. With studied calm I inverted my pen and, with a nicely understated flourish, rubbed out the offending marks. lehespehat!' said the vice-consul. 'That's a cute little dingus."It's why I am going to America', I explained, ad he stamped my passport without more ado. Already 1 had incontrovertible proof that the erasable ballpoint pen had its uses.
But had it ever occurred to you what other opportunities for fraud, theft and general chicanery would present themselves if you had a writing instrument which everyone would assume to be indelible, but whose mark would in fact vanish at the wipe of an ordinary indiarubber? At Gillette some people think it can never have occurred to its inventor, Henry Peper, either, or he would never have told his employers in the PaperMate Division about the idea of mixing ink with Cow gum so that its traces could be rolled away. Even a sober journal like the Financial Times says that Peper's invention 'is to the fraudster what the jemmy is to the bank robber.' If Peper was half-bright, it is suggested, he should have cleared a fortune simply by lending his pen to people who were writing him cheques and then altering the figures to suit himself. But Peper is known at Gillette for his homespun American attitudes and command of the American vernacular. He likens his great invention to 'snot on a doorknob'. The man is plainly as honest as apple pie. Nonetheless every one of his pens sold in America carries the equivalent of a government health warning. It comes from the Bankers' Association of America and says in effect that the pen can damage your bank account. To hammer the point home Gillette have 'roadblocked' the television channels with their commercials. This is the equivalent of making a party political broadcast out of your advertising, ensuring that it is on all channels simultaneously so that people have to opt for a night at the cinema if they are to avoid it. It cost five million dollars.
At Gillette they are tremendously proud of the public awareness their new product has engendered. The frightening speed with which Americans take technological advances to their hearts, and then discard them like old dishcloths, was nicely pointed when we went to a discount store to see erasable ballpoint pens at 'point of sale'. The store manager was very keen-erasable ballpoint pens was something he could not get enough of. But what about the neighbouring product, a rolling-ball pen called Quicksilver which is still being heralded here in an expensive advertising campaign? The product has had its day', he said tersely. Well, how long had it been on the market? 'Oh, about a day and a half.'
The highlight of my tour of the Gillette factory was that I got to play with a jar of Peper's special ink. It is like overcooked blueberry jam. I also learned that ballpoints are regularly tested, mounted on a machine which has ten of them drawing continuous circles as a paper roll creeps along beneath them. The staff take the multicoloured stripes they draw home for wallpaper, or -Christmas decorations. At Santa Monica, we were told the factory was producing five times as many pens as it was in 1972. They hope to make it a billion a year by 1980. 'No one knows where all these extra ballpoints go', said the top man but then they have not looked in the beaker on my office desk. Somebody is buying erasable ballpoint pens, too, though in five days in America I never saw one sold or met anyone who had bought one. The company says they will sell something like 80 million this year. They cannot all be going to Japan for dissection.
Erasable ballpoint ink does not stay erasable forever. 'It's a good thing really,' explained the homely Henry, 'otherwise I would only have re-invented the pencil.' Nor is the erasable ink guaranteed to come off clothes. 'The pigment is gradually absorbed by the surface and then becomes permanent', we were told, and like most pens, the erasable model writes better on shirts and cuffs than it does on paper. And, finally, to counter the alleged forgery threat, a paper company in America is already well advanced with developing a high security paper for use by the banks. Its surface will be so absorbent that the erasable ink will not rub away.
Advanced technology is both a neverending and a self-defeating process. The consumer implications of that are, well, expensive. 'Replay', the erasable ballpoint pen, will, in fact, cost f1.39 in British shops, but I shall not be buying one. Halfway through our tour of the Santa Monica facility I found I had lost half my notes. Written in erasable ink, they had in fact rubbed off on my palm.
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