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The scene on October 29, 1945 at Gimbel's Department Store in New York City was a madhouse.

Big ads the day before had trumpeted the first sale in the U.S. of a new writing instrument that guaranteed would write for two years without refilling -- the ball point pen.

By the end of the day, the store had sold its entire stock of 10,000 at $12.50 each.

The new pens were invented by two Hungarian brothers who set up a factory in Argentina.

The idea of the ball point pen was first patented in 1888 by John Loud of Massachusetts, who never made any pens.

Now, ball points are a standard item in the nation's 8,600 office supply stores, which have sales of nearly $21 billion a year.