What I had first, then not for 50 years, and then again
“A package came for you today. It’s in the hallway.”
That will definitely be the show from “Gewürz Mayer”, I think to myself. I had ordered something there a few days before.
When I check a few hours later, I see that the package is from Kathrin Passig. It contains a four-color “Faber Castell Colorex” ballpoint pen, which I later find out she bought on eBay.
Some time ago I wrote in the technology diary that as a child around 1970 I briefly owned a four-color ballpoint pen where you chose the writing color by looking at the color you wanted.
In order to be able to write in a certain color, for example with the red lead, you simply had to look at the red dot on the outside of the ballpoint pen and at the same time press the push button in, whereupon the red lead was pushed out of the bottom of the pen.
At the time, I already suspected that simply looking at a color could not determine the appropriate refill, but no one could explain to me what was actually going on inside the ballpoint pen.
It was only years later that I found the explanation for the “automatic visual dialing” system, which was so puzzling at the time, and learned that gravity plays a role. As a result, “choosing a color by looking” only works if you hold the ballpoint pen so that the dot with the desired color is at the top; You can then save yourself the actual viewing.
During my research two years ago, I discovered an old issue from 1968 in the SPIEGEL archives with an advertisement for a four-color ballpoint pen from Faber Castell called “Colorex” for 4.90 marks and be careful, the circle closes here: it is exactly that Ballpoint pen that Kathrin Passig sent to me, surprisingly even in the old original packaging including the operating instructions; The small package also contained four (new) replacement mines.
Examples this well preserved are apparently very rare, and I have no idea how Kathrin Passig managed to find this one.
ALT
The original refills no longer write properly, but the new replacement refills that were sent with the foresight can be inserted into the 50-year-old ballpoint pen without any problems, and I realize that ballpoint refills have apparently been standardized for a long time.
After some reflection, I realize that there isn’t much that I owned once, then for 50 years, and then again, and it certainly won’t happen much again in the rest of my life, if at all. I would have to buy an old Märklin train on eBay or a “Kosmos Elektromann” experiment set that I had as a child.
I still find the four-color ballpoint pen with color selection by looking fascinating, although I now know that no magical “rays of vision” are involved, only gravity. I admire the person who invented automatic dialing a little and at the same time regret that I didn’t have such a good idea myself.
(Oliver Laumann)