CORPORATIONS: On the Ball

The “fantastic, atomic era, miraculous pen” of Reynolds International Pen Co. last week wrote some fantastic financial news. In the first six months of the company’s existence, up to Jan. 31, 1946, Founder Milton Reynolds ran a $26,000 investment into a profit of $1,558,608, after taxes, on sales of $5,674,329. But the ball-point pen, which Reynolds bragged would write for two years without refilling —and would also write under water—had squiggled some blots on this shiny record. Sample blot: of the 100,000 Reynolds pens sold by Manhattan’s Gimbel Brothers, Inc. (TIME, Nov. 12), some 6,000 were returned because they did not work properly.

In its financial report, Reynolds Co. said reassuringly: “Frankly, one of the problems was the occasional development , of a small air bubble in the barrel of the pen which sometimes prevented the free flow of ink to the ballpoint. Literally thousands of perfect pens were, therefore, returned to the retailer as being defective.”

One disgruntled buyer put it more bluntly. Said he: “The only way the darn thing will write is under water.”

Unperturbed, Gimbels this week ordered another 100,000 pens of a new model not afflicted with embolism. And Reynolds has bought a “practically” new factory in Chicago which will help turn out 30,000 “miraculous” pens a day. But from now on, selling the pens may not be so freehanded. Penman Reynolds wrote his own ticket by tapping the rich postwar market first. Next month he will run into his first stiff competition. Eversharp and Eberhard Faber, who do 10-15% of the U.S. pen-&-pencil business, will put on sale their own ball-point pen.