On Mon, 9 Jul 2018 22:49:29 -0400, Dave Smith
> wrote:

>On 2018-07-09 6:29 PM, wrote:
>> On Mon, 9 Jul 2018 09:48:19 -0700 (PDT), Cindy Hamilton
>>
>> I grew up with paper straws and wooden ice cream spoons, never saw
>> plastic til the 6o's. I never saw plastic ball point pens until the
>> late 50s
>
>Ball point pens were slow off the start and were very expensive in the
>1950s. When I was in elementary school we had to learn to write with
>stick pens. Once we demonstrated mastery of that we could use fountain
>pens, and we used them right through high school. By the time I got to
>university Bic pens were cheap.

Just the opposite in the US, we learned to write long hand with
fountain pens. When the first ballpoints arrived (Ballerina) they
were much less expensive than fountain pens. The least expensive
fountain pens then cost about $4, Esterbrook. The first ballpoints
cost about 25¢, however they were not yet perfected, they were very
messy as they leaked and their greasy ink took forever to dry.