# Talk:Bic Cristal

NO One Has Noticed that Bis Cristal and bic Stic are not the same product, perhaps this page should be fixed or split, both pens are fairly iconic, but the picture on the page shows the stic, the cristal has a clear body.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.39.141 (talk) 20:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC) 
This is not at all a good article. It is so unbalanced, the trivia section isn't even trivia, it'sbragging and selling points. This is garbage. Gopherbassist 03:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

That's your opinion, friend. I take it you think I some how work for Bic or earn my living from their products. I do not. The article may well be garbage.I am certainly no "writer" but I do like industrial design and I think my article is better than no article, which was the case before my article. If you bothered to check the other articles I have written/contributed to you'd see they were all on similar design based subjects (and no doubt you would consider equally poorly written) Moka Express, Luxo L1, Anglepoise lamp, Design classic, Telstar (ball), Cifra 3 etc.
These pens are so bloody common, the idea that a stub article in Wikipedia is going to sell them isn't really plausible. People go into corner shops and buy them as and when they need them- They don't reaserch the pens first on Wikipedia.
I dont see any thing "wrong with the trivia section".It is trivia.
The use of hairspray as an ink remover wouldn't be a good selling point as it could infer the pens leaked! --Trounce 10:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I've had a look at an article that you wrote, Traben Bass Company and I have to say you sure do have some cheek to criticise  my article, on any grounds! The Traben Bass Company article reads like a product catalogue for the company. If you spent more time improving your own articles and less time criticising other peoples, Wikipedia would be much better off!--Trounce 11:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I've got proble admitting my article might need work, but it's not an advirtisment. If you think my article needs to be changed, discuss it. Don't just bash me because you're to stupid to see what's wrong with this article. And most of the trivia is a bunch of selling points. Gopherbassist 19:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
You're wrong, the only problem I have with those other articles is the way you have the pictures set up.
I find it hypocritical of you to knock the trivia section of my article as "sellling points" when I could call your entire article one big selling point. Look, I wouldn't have bothered to write that stuff I wrote on the talk page of Traben Bass Company save for the fact I think your initial remaks at the start of this talk page are bang out of line. The reason I did it was to try to highlight to you that (1) It's kind of offensive to trash someone's article like you did and (2)That one man's meat is another man's poision. You view the Traben Bass Company article as a fine, if unpolished contribution to Wikipedia. Someone eles could just as easily view it as a product catalogue for the company. The article really dosen't bother me in any way me. Your "this is garbage" coment on this article did bother me.
On the Trivia points:
>It was designed by the Décolletage Plastique Design Team.
>It is made from polystyrene, polypropylene, tungsten carbide and brass/nickel silver.
These are both from the MoMA Humble Masterpieces ehibition list- hardly a catalogue for bic pens. They also provide good wikilinks to the materials.
>The pen's lid has a small hole in it to prevent choking if accidentally swallowed.
>The point size is one millimetre and it will write for a distance of between two to three kilometres
>It comes in four colors: blue, black, red and green -except in the U.S., where green is unavailable.
This is trivia. According to the dictionary here in front of me trivia is defined as "petty details or considerations". The idea that some how people will be influenced to buy a Bic pen by these three "selling points" just isn't credible.
"I think I'll buy this pen honey, 'cause Wikipedia says I won't choke if I swallow the lid!!!"
"Gee honey, that's amazing, Wikipedia says they make these things in black and red too!"
>Bic suggests the use of hair spray as a good ballpoint ink remover
This is an "anti-selling" point as I said previously
The only thing that MIGHT be construed as some kind of bow to commercialism is the EAN (barcode). I put this in as I have a bit of a barcode fetish, it was to hand at the time of writing, and it gave an excuse to wikilink to the EAN article. On closer examination this could't  really be called a selling point or a bow to commercialism. The idea that someone would take down the EAN and bring it to a shop to request a Bic pen is far fetched. As I said elsewhere people buy pens as and when they need them, choosing the product on offer at the time. They dont order them by EAN.
and I didnt post the trivia about lock picking.--Trounce 09:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Stop blanking the page Trounce [1][2]. Just because someone says some things you don't like about an article that you worked on is no reason to remove their (or your) comments. Ironically I agree with the points you made and don't think Gopherbassist had any valid criticisms, and him calling this article "garbage" was unnecessary. 
However, blanking the talk page just prevents others from adding to the discussion and is considered vandalism. 172.141.87.72 21:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about that. With hindsight the whole argument looked petty and childish and I thought I'd just delete it. I didn't realize it wasn't acceptable. Ahh well... you live and learn --Trounce 11:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I removed the external link to an "artist who used Bic pens in his 2003 exhibition 'ball-pen-ink'" because it was dead. If there is any other place where his site is still in the air, feel free to put it back.
Peace out. (Gerard RvE 01:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC))

The article says that the Bic Cristal has a point size of one millimetre, is this correct?
If we are talking about the standard "medium" pen, I would say the line thickness is closer to 0.5, maybe 0.6 mm.
The fine version is something like 0.3mm in my experience, but I've not come across a Bic Cristal that draws a line which is 1mm thick.  This is quite thick for a ballpoint pen and is more like the thicknesses you would get with some felt-tip pens.
Is there a "thick" version of the Bic Cristal, and does this write at 1mm thickness?  If so, perhaps the article could be more specific on this point.
Tanel76 14:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

In a ballpoint pen, the diameter of the ball is always larger than the line it puts down. 174.63.113.232 (talk) 19:49, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

What about the Bic Orange with a finer point?
Isn't it sold anymore?
--84.20.17.84 (talk) 10:29, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

A heads up that there may be some silly vandalism of this page (and perhaps this could be a future historical example of this type of activity):
The majority of the 42 reviews of this product on Amazon have been written in recent days, and most are a bit tongue-in-cheek:
"Bic Crystal ballpoint pen, medium point, black, EACH"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/customer-reviews/B000JTOYLS
Suspecting a popular blog entry pointing people to the page, I did some online research and found this popular Digg page discussing it:
http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Very_Good_If_You_Need_to_Write_on_Paper_A_Pen_Review_2
Benbradley (talk) 18:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Can we get a picture from someone who knows how to focus their camera?  Encyclopedias have a duty to portray their subjects as accurately and clearly as possible, this picture looks good in an artsy way but is blurred all to hell.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.5.80.160 (talk) 19:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC) 

I see no evidence that "The European model has an ink cartridge that is flush with the body, the American one is smaller than the pen body". Any variation one sees between the blurred pens can be due to different rotations of the transparent hexagonal casing. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I looked at this article when browsing recent changes, and there's this text that sounds like promotional ad-copy:

Named after one of the most organized forms of matter, with its hexagonal variety being the most complex of the crystalline systems, the Bic Cristal embodies fully the spirit of natural counterpart. A symbol of structured durability and modern longevity, it is so simple that it can be produced identically and ad infinitum. According to Sociologist Umberto Eco is the unique example of achieved socialism, as it does away with all ownership rights and social distinctions.
There might be other problems in the text, I didn't read all of it. Does anybody mind if I remove this on grounds of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR? This is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, not something extolling the virtues of this pen. Thanks. LovesMacs (talk) 14:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
What is up with the theology under the "History" section? That, and a lot of other parts of this article, sound like someone is making homage to the pen as an object of industrialism and social change. Yeah, it was a pretty revolutionary design, but it's a bloody pen! --Noderaser (talk) 22:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I've rewritten the wildly worded tribute (which read as though it had been translated from French advertising copy) into an encyclopedia article. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

No mention of their new line of Bic Cristal For Her pens... and the completely expected outcries from the public (and Amazon reviews) about how terrible an idea this appears to be. 83.70.170.48 (talk) 13:01, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

At the end of the article, it's written "Crystal Stylus"... the correct is Cristal  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:14D:7E87:3C5:E4D8:225B:87D5:2774 (talk) 21:33, 20 December 2015 (UTC) 

This review is transcluded from Talk:Bic Cristal/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 02:18, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
Reviewing. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:18, 12 March 2017 (UTC)


### Initial reading
Note: This was all written before seeing any of the commentary added above.

1a. Prose quality.

Lead: the "lead pencil" link needs disambiguation.
Someone has already done it.
"; it is sold in black, blue, red, and green": colors of pen body, or of inks?
Actually not true; I've removed it. (Fluorescent orange, anyone?)
History: Clichy might be worth a wikilink.
It's linked in the lead.
"cutting and shaping metal down to 0.01 millimetres (0.00039 in), with the outcome a stainless steel, one-millimetre (0.039 in) sphere": I don't understand what this sentence is supposed to mean. What shape did the metal start in and what shape did it end in? What is the relation between the "0.01" millimeter measurement first given and the size of the sphere? Is the 1mm its radius, diameter, or some other value? And what is the connection between the Swiss cutting technology at the start of the sentence and the freely flowing ink at its end? And there's more to the pen than the ball at its point: was there nothing of interest to say about how the rest was manufactured?
"under a licence from Bíró": what specifically did they license? And the second link to Bíro in the same paragraph is unnecessary.
"Called the "Atomic pen" in France": presumably this was the original name of the pen, since it was a French company. So when did it start being called the "Cristal"? And technically, the "called the" phrase is dangling, since it seems to be intended to modify the pen but grammatically what it actually modifies is the pen's tip. And again this sentence ends somewhere unrelated to where it starts: what does the shift from fountain pens have to do with what it was called?
I've updated the wording according to the source.
"from fountain pens to mostly ballpoints": this reads a little awkwardly. What verb or adjective is the adverb "mostly" supposed to modify?
What is the significance to this specific pen of the French switch to ballpoints in 1965?
Its inexpensiveness and ease of manufacture?
"acknowledged by the Museum of Modern Art": I'm not convinced this is the correct verb. Is it usually called "acknowledging" when a museum adds something to its collection?
I've replaced it with "recognised".
"brass/nickel silver tip": those are three different metals. Are they alloyed, or does the pen come in different varieties with different metals in the tip? What is the significance of the slash between two of the metals and not the third?
Do brass, nickel, and silver alloy cleanly? Not sure about the slash. The MoMA source only gives plastic and tungsten carbide as materials. The Ohio State University says the tip is made of brass, so I've gone with that.
"In 1961 the stainless steel ball was replaced with much harder tungsten carbide which is vitrified by heat, then ground down and milled to an accuracy of 0.1 micrometres (3.9×10−6 in) between spinning plates coated with industrial diamond abrasives.": another overlong and confusing sentence.
I've attempted to break it up.
1b. lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

"the archetypal ballpoint pen and is ubiquitous anywhere a pen can be found": the wording is a little promotional and neither of these claims seems to be supported by actual text in the body of the article.
I thought this, but I found a source (Smithsonian, actually) that says the same thing.
2a. Properly formatted references.

Although not a GA requirement, reference formatting is not completely consistent. Some are formatted in CS1 (with the {{cite}} templates), others with more haphazard manual formatting. And the Gizmodo reference doesn't list the publication date (easily available from the link).
Done.
The "Phaidon Design Classics" reference needs page numbers to be easily verifiable.
I don't actually have the book, and I'm not about to spend $223 on a GA review...
2b. The sources used are reliable and verify the claims that they source.

Source [1] (Phaidon) taken on good faith as it is offline
Source [2] (MoMA checksheet) gives only the construction date, construction materials, company name, and provenance of the object in the museum collection. It also has a general caveat that "A number of objects in the show, new proposals for acquisition, have not yet made it into the collection." But it is used as a footnote for a sentence about which subunit of Bic designed it and when it was designed, and another sentence about it being added to MoMA's permanent collection. It does not verify any of these claims.
Above "BIC Cristal" it states the name of the design team, so it works for the first one.
Source [3] (Larcen) talks about the "Classic Stic", a marque not mentioned in the article. How are we to know whether this is the same pen?
The grammar is confusing, but I believe the slogan is not referring to the Stic.
Sources [4] and [5] (Guinness and MoMA collection) really do source what they claim.
Source [6] is primary (from Bic) and vaguely worded, but appears to source the claim that the hole in the cap is to prevent asphyxiation. Is it supposed to source more of this paragraph?
Reference [7] (gizmodo) contradicts our article. Our article says the stylus rubber tip replaces the ballpoint; the reference says it's at the other end of the pen.
Fixed.
2c. No original research or unsourced claims.

"first launched in December 1950": this claim in the lead is never repeated as specifically in the body, and has no source in the lead.
The "Humble Masterpieces" PDF gives 1950 as the release date.
"it is sold in black, blue, red, and green": unsourced.
Removed, as above.
"ink flows down due to gravity": really? It was my understanding that at that scale capillary action was much more significant. Anyway, unsourced.
I'm not sure what to do here, as I believe the paragraph is sourced to Phaidon. For what it's worth, I tried writing upside-down with a blue one and it didn't work, although that seems like the definition of OR.
"Called the "Atomic pen" ... mostly ballpoints.": unsourced.
There are a few pen history blog posts (who writes this stuff?) but they seem to take it from us. I did, however, find this, which seems to source it.
Most of the design section has only two general footnotes at the end. It is unclear which of the claims in this section are cited to which of these two footnotes.
"The company funded a website": unsourced.
Sourced.
2d. No inappropriate copying.

I can't check the offline book source. Earwig found two very similarly worded web sites http://www.1bc.eu/post/150680690637/bic and https://awritersden.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/my-names-biro-bic-biro-%F0%9F%98/ but judging by the dates and article edit history they copied from us rather than vice versa, so no problems here.
3. Broad coverage.

Mostly, but one thing that occurred to me as I read this was that the intellectual property side of this was covered only vaguely and tangentially in the reference to licensing from Bíro. Did Bich patent anything? Did any competitors try to copy the design? What was their fate?
4. Neutral.

No significant issues.
5. Stable.

Yes.
6. Illustrated with properly licensed and captioned images.

The images are of good quality and appear to be properly licensed. The caption for the second one is perhaps overly detailed.
Toned it down a little. The image with the caps is actually a "Quality image" on Commons.
Verdict: Some issues need fixing before this can be GA, but there appear to be no serious obstacles to fixing them. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:37, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

@Laurdecl: I noticed there was a flurry of edits last weekend, but it seems to have stalled out again. Please let me know here when you think you have addressed all the issues above and would like me to make another round of review. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:12, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: Sorry; I was a bit, uh, distracted... I've annotated the above, can you take a look? Cheers. Laurdecl talk 07:06, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


### Second reading
1a. Prose quality
Two points from my previous reading (the confusing "cutting and shaping metal" sentence, and the license from Bíró) still not addressed.

It's sourced to Phaidon, so I can't check the original text. I think that it means that the machine was capable of shaping to 0.01 mm and therefore could produce a 1 mm sphere. When read that way, it isn't confusing. I've tried to reword it.
I've reworded the Bíró part.
1b. Words to watch

The editorialization is now properly supported by a source.
2a. Source formatting

Page numbers for the Phaedon book still not done, but with a pretty valid reason for not doing them. I'm guessing the pages are easily enough found from the index, so it's not a huge issue. However (maybe more for 2b than 2a): if you're not checking that source, and I'm not checking that source, who is? Unfortunately worldcat.org lists only two libraries in Denmark and one in England (Wolverhampton) as holding this book; I don't suppose you're anywhere near either?
No, unfortunately, and the plane ticket would be even more expensive. We'll see how the RX request goes.
2b–d. Source quality, verification, unsourced claims, and copying

All issues from prior reading addressed.
3. Broad coverage.

This is a pretty short article, so there's still plenty of room for expansion if appropriate material can be found.
Issues related to intellectual property from previous reading: still not addressed. Potential sources: [8] [9]
I've written a bit on the first one, at the end of the "Design" section.
A talk page comment from 2012 mentions the "Bic Cristal For Her" line, which is still not mentioned in the article, and maybe should be. Potential sources: [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] etc. It could go in the same section as the stylus (with a different section title), and prevent that section from being so short.
Done.
4-5. Neutral and stable.

No issues found in previous reading and nothing new to add.
6. Illustrations.

The overdetailed image caption is now ok; no other issues.
Verdict: Converging towards a positive result but not quite there yet. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:51, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@Laurdecl: Hello? I got the Phaidon scans 12 days ago and I assume you did also. Any estimate on when you'll make progress on these remaining issues? —David Eppstein (talk) 04:27, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: Alright, I think I've done everything. Laurdecl talk 00:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


### Third reading
Ok, we now have scans of Phaidon to compare to. (At least, I have them, and I assume Laurdecl does too; they are not freely available online.)
Phrases and sentences sourced to Phaidon and whether Phaidon actually supports those sentences:

 "In 1945 after the Second World War, Marcel Bich and Edouard Buffard founded Société PPA in Clichy, a suburb north of Paris. "PPA" stood for Porte-plume, Porte-mines et Accessoires – pens, mechanical pencils and accessories. During the war Bich had seen a ballpoint pen manufactured in Argentina by László Bíró. Between 1949 and 1950...": supported neither by Phaidon nor by the other source (the MOMA blurb).
@David Eppstein: For the 1945 date, there are quite a few conflicting sources. One official timeline gives the date as 1944, but another gives it as 1945. This tertiary sources gives it as 1945, and Googling "bic company founding date" gives a very precise "25 October 1945, Clichy, France", but I don't know where Google gets this from. Should we assume the first source has a typo? Laurdecl talk 23:24, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
We could waffle a bit and write "around 1945" rather than "in 1945", maybe? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:30, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
I believe the first source refers to when the building was bought, as opposed to when the company was founded. I'll reword it. Laurdecl talk 23:40, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 "the Bic Cristal was designed by the Décolletage Plastique design team at Société PPA (later Société Bic)": the source doesn't say that the team was at SPPA, but it does mention the name of the design team and the Société Bic name of the company.
 "Bich invested in Swiss technology capable of shaping metal down to 0.01 millimetres (0.00039 in), which could produce a stainless steel one-millimetre (0.039 in) sphere which allowed ink to flow freely. Bich developed a viscosity of ink which neither leaked nor clogged": not supported by Phaidon source.
Sourced to Phaidon online: http://au.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2011/october/19/everyday-icon-3-the-bic-biro/ Laurdecl talk 11:57, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 "under a licence from Bíró for the ballpoint, launched the Cristal in December 1950": this part is ok.
 "Bich invested heavily in advertising, hiring poster designer Raymond Savignac. In 1953 advertising executive Pierre Guichenné advised Bich": not supported by the source.
Done. Added a part about an award as well. Laurdecl talk 11:49, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 "to shorten his family name to Bic as an easy-to-remember": this part is supported, maybe uncomfortably closely in wording: the source says "a shortened, easy-to-remember version of his name".
 "globally adaptable tradename for the pen, which fit in with product branding trends of the post-war era": not supported by the source.
I'm not sure that we can find a source that says this. We could remove it, but it's mostly harmless and fairly obvious. Laurdecl talk 11:49, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Sourced to the online Phaidon article. Laurdecl talk 11:57, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 "Its hexagonal shape was taken from the wooden pencil and yields an economical use of plastic along with strength and three grip points giving high writing stability": not supported by the source.
I've reworded this to simply say that it resembles a lead pencil. This is fairly obvious from the pictures. Laurdecl talk 11:45, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 "The pen's transparent polystyrene barrel and polypropylene tube show the ink-level": the source mentions the materials and the fact that the barrel is clear; it doesn't say that it's to show the ink level, but this seems a minor point.
 "A tiny hole in the barrel's body maintains the same air pressure inside and outside the pen": not mentioned by the source.
Sourced to the FAQ. Laurdecl talk 23:39, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 "In 1961 the stainless steel ball was replaced with much harder tungsten carbide. This ballpoint is first vitrified by heat, then ground down and milled to an accuracy of 0.1 micrometres (3.9×10−6 in) between spinning plates coated with industrial diamond abrasives": the source says only that the ball is a "perfect sphere of tungsten carbide".
Sourced to https://u.osu.edu/bicpens/03-manufacturing/ Laurdecl talk 12:20, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
The new material on counterfeiting and spin-offs looks good, although the word "namely" in the Bic for Her section reads a bit awkwardly to me; maybe "particularly" would be better?
So if we can just clear up the sourcing issues for the sentences not supported by Phaidon, we should be good to go. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:45, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Looks like I've got a lot of work to do... Laurdecl talk 08:33, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
@Laurdecl: Er, is this going anywhere? This has been going on too long; we need to wrap it up. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:47, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: Sorry, it's almost impossible to find sources on something so obscure that don't quote from us. I think that's everything. Laurdecl talk 12:20, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
@Laurdecl: One last sentence needs both a source and some detail on how it specifically affected the Bic brands rather than just being about ballpoint pens in general: "In 1965 the French ministry of education began allowing the use of ballpoint pens in classrooms." I pointed this one out before but no change has been made. Or you could just remove it, as it doesn't seem essential to the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:03, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Sourced and reworded. The source also clarified that the pen works via capillary action, not gravity. Laurdecl talk 07:13, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Ok, all issues have been addressed; passing. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:09, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

The text appears to claim that the ink cartridge in the Cristal is "pressurized". The cited source refers to an earlier design; simple inspection will show that the Cristal's ink cartridge is not pressurized, and if it were the claimed function of the small hole in the barrel would not make sense. But where to find a suitable source? — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 05:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Apparently resolved by [this edit. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 03:06, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

< Bich invested in Swiss technology capable of shaping metal down to 0.01 millimetres (0.00039 in), which could produce a stainless steel one-millimetre (0.039 in) sphere which allowed ink to flow freely.[5] >
Ref 5 has no numbers except for 'one-millimeter' - where do the others come from?
86.162.139.125 (talk) 19:00, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The article says that it was introduced at USD $0.29.  By the time I was aware of this line of pens (1966?), they were at CAD$0.19, and the "19" was cast into the body implying that it was the same price in USD.
As of 1966 or so, there were three pens in the model line:  the basic pen discussed here (I never heard the "Cristal" name till just now) at $0.19, the "FINE" model with an opaque orange body at $0.25 and the "DELUXE FINE" model with a white opaque body at $0.49.
Did the price drop from 29 to 19 as volume ramped up, or is the article wrong?
Should the orange and white versions be mentioned in the article?
I've edited many articles over the years, but figure tossing these two points into the article may be more disruptive than helpful.