Flo-Master was a brand of

ink Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. ...

s and

markers The term Marker may refer to: Common uses * Marker (linguistics), a morpheme that indicates some grammatical function * Marker (telecommunications), a special-purpose computer * Boundary marker, an object that identifies a land boundary * Marke ...

in the latter half of the 20th century, remembered particularly for the colorful

opacity Opacity or opaque may refer to: * Impediments to (especially, visible) light: ** Opacities, absorption coefficients ** Opacity (optics), property or degree of blocking the transmission of light * Metaphors derived from literal optics: ** In lingu ...

of the inks. These markers were designed for marking on

glass Glass is a non-Crystallinity, crystalline, often transparency and translucency, transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most ...

, and became weapons of choice among

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

writers of the Original School of NYC Writin' in the 1970s and early 1980s.

History

Cushman & Denison first introduced Flo-Master "refillable markers" in 1951, which targeted store owners and advertisers with limited success. In 1953,

Esterbrook The Esterbrook Pen Company is a former American manufacturing company founded by English immigrant Richard Esterbrook and based in Camden, New Jersey. It was the largest pen manufacturer in the United States, having reached a record of producing ...

America took over the company in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, and Esterbrook Pens and Cushman & Denison

merged Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

in 1960 in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. To counter a precipitous fall-off in its business following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Esterbrook worked to develop new and innovative products, and the years 1960 to 1967 saw steady progress. Under the

Gem A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semiprecious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, a ...

brand name, the company launched its highly successful Mark I line of products, featuring the "Valve Marker" and the "Permanent Pen." Flo-Master brand inks were used in many of these products, and was also sold separately for refills, marketed in handy

tin can A steel can, tin can, tin (especially in British English, Australian English, Canadian English and South African English), steel packaging, or can is a container for the distribution or storage of goods, made of thin metal. Many cans ...

s equipped with "needle-nose"

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

nozzle A nozzle is a device designed to control the direction or characteristics of a fluid flow (specially to increase velocity) as it exits (or enters) an enclosed chamber or pipe. A nozzle is often a pipe or tube of varying cross sectional area, ...

s. In 1967, the Venus Pencil Company bought out the Esterbrook Pen Company, resulting in the formation of

Venus Esterbrook Venus Pencils were a brand name of pencils made by the American Lead Pencil Company beginning in 1905. The production of Venus pencils gave the company an early start in the manufacture of high-quality pencils marketed to artists and architects. ...

Impact

In the Russian language '' фломастер'' (''flomaster'') has become a common name for any

marker pen A marker pen, fine liner, marking pen, felt-tip pen, felt pen, flow marker, sign pen (in South Korea), vivid (in New Zealand), texta (in Australia), sketch pen (in South Asia) or koki (in South Africa), is a pen which has its own ink sourc ...

(regardless of actual brand). The same is true for many other

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto ...

, e. g.

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * Som ...

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

, Bosnian,

Bulgarian Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...

Croatian Croatian may refer to: * Croatia *Croatian language *Croatian people *Croatians (demonym) See also * * * Croatan (disambiguation) * Croatia (disambiguation) * Croatoan (disambiguation) * Hrvatski (disambiguation) * Hrvatsko (disambiguation) * S ...

, Serbian or Slovene, and the Baltic languages (

Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Lithuanians * Lithuanian language * The country of Lithuania * Grand Duchy of Lithuania * Culture of Lithuania * Lithuanian cuisine * Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Je ...

and

Latvian Latvian may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Latvia **Latvians, a Baltic ethnic group, native to what is modern-day Latvia and the immediate geographical region **Latvian language, also referred to as Lettish **Latvian cuisine **Latvi ...

), as well as in the Egyptian dialect of Arabic. When street-writing took to the subways in New York City at the start of the 1970s, Flo-Master opaque inks were the natural choice for graffiti artists, as they adhered to virtually any surface permanently. In addition, the ink was not only opaque on glass, but covered up pre-existing writing as well. These unique properties allowed subway writers to "toy out" rivals, obliterating old "tags" with new ones. Flo-Master inks were not only colorful and

durable Durability is the ability of a physical product to remain functional, without requiring excessive maintenance or repair, when faced with the challenges of normal operation over its design lifetime. There are several measures of durability in use ...

; in addition, the design of their cans allowed for portability, quick refilling and artful "pointing" and "edging" of "Uni-Wide" and "Mini-Wide" markers—designed for "ribbon"-style writing on glass—which were extremely popular with early graffiti writers as well.

Decline

Due to its high

lead Lead is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metals, heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale of mineral hardness#Intermediate ...

content—the ingredient which gave Flo-Master inks their distinctive attributes—production was suspended by

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a ...

. The once bright and durable Flo-Master inks faded from history, contributing to the end of the

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the Go ...

of American graffiti by the mid-1980s.

References

{{Reflist Inks Pens