Talk:Bic Cristal

Gee honey, that's amazing
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)

Page blanking
Stop blanking the page Trounce. 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)

Removed dead link at the bottom of the page
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))

Point Size
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)

Orange
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)

Bic Crystal[sic] amusing reviews on Amazon, Digg
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)

clearer picture
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)

Neutrality issues
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. Loves Macs  (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)

Bic Cristal For her
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)

Cristal with an "i" not an "y"
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)

Pressurized?
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?  &mdash; jmcgnh  (talk) (contribs)  05:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Apparently resolved by [this edit. [[User:jmcgnh| &mdash; jmcgnh ]] (talk) (contribs)  03:06, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Dimensions
< 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)

Price point at intro.
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.