How does a Floaty Pen work?

Shoemakers in 19th century Germany are connected to plastic souvenir pens in the mid-1900s through a series of light bulb moments.

In Germany, in the late 1800s, a surgical mechanic called Erwin Perzy was trying to find a way to strengthen the light from the early dim electrical bulbs for use during surgery. Perzy was inspired by a traditional practice among shoemakers and craftspeople. They used a globular glass jar filled with water as a lens to concentrate candle light. These Schusterkugel (cobbler’s balls or globes), allowed them to continue their delicate work during the evening and night time. He was hoping the same principle would work with electric light.

By 1900, he was experimenting with adding various materials to the water in the globe to boost the light intensity. It didn’t have the effect he was after, but while trying out semolina in the globes and watching the particles fall gently through the water, Perzy hit upon a less technical idea. In the next few years he began to manufacture snow globes with a miniature scene inside them.

For 40 years, Perzy’s snow globes were a very popular novelty but had only one design, a church scene. When his son took over the business in the 1940s he expanded the catalogue into a variety of miniature wintery scenes and this family run business continues even today. The idea of miniature scenes and floating bits in liquid was now several decades old and people had started trying to fit them into all sorts of smaller shapes.

The floaty pen or floating action pen, essentially floating designs inside the barrel of a pen, had been around a few years in small ways but like most pens before the invention of ball pens around the same time, they had a leak problem. The transparent barrel was filled with mineral oil which always ended up leaking.

Along came Peder Eskesen from Denmark. In the late 1940s he invented a way to make a perfectly sealed pen barrel which held the mineral oil secure unlike his competitors. The oil company Esso came to him with an idea of making a pen with a floating oil barrel inside it and thus the first successful floaty pen was produced.

These novelty pens continued to grow in popularity throughout the 20th century, as corporate gifts and travel souvenirs. Multiple types were invented by a handful of manufacturers, but the Eskesen company still produces some of the best floaty pens. (As of 2024, Eskesen has shut down its operations in Denmark, however the floating action pens will continue to be manufactured by Eskesen’s long – term partner Maiko Nakamura, Retrobank in Japan.)

Anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s might remember friends and relatives returning from European trips with lewd little ballpens on which sparsely dressed men and women were magically undressed by tipping the pen the right way. This too was one form the floaty pen came to take on. Tip ‘n’ Strip, some labeled it. Not so much more questionable sounding than the original name for these from the 1940s: Float Action Pens.

If all this sounds far-fetched and you’re beginning to doubt the veracity of our stationery wisdoms, we have only one thing to say to you.

Schusterkugel! 

1. Take a walk with us through the early 1900s with these 5 vintage stationery advertisements, and see how much and how little our world has changed. – https://inkymemo.com/vintage-stationery-ads-1900s/
2. Sumi ink painting is one of the oldest forms of art because Sumi ink and other carbon black inks have been around for millennia. Watch this video where we test Sumi Ink – https://inkymemo.com/sumi-ink-test/