Miscellaneous
Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2003 9:18 pm
A BRIEF HISTORY OF PAPERCLIPS
The history of fastening bits of paper together begins in medieval times when clerics and lawyers would cut parallel incisions in the upper left hand corners of bits of paper or parchment and thread lengths of ribbon through them. Some time later, sealing-wax came along, so people could fix bits of paper together with this as well. More than half a millennium was to pass before anyone made a serious effort to improve on these systems.
In 1835 a New York doctor named John Ireland Howe invented the first practical machine for making pins, and in no time at all, people everywhere were using Howe's straight pins to fasten papers together. For most of the 19th century, the pin's predominance remained unchallenged, and clerical workers kept pricking themselves and dying of unpleasant diseases as a result.
The paperclip as we know and love it today was invented by Johann Vaaler, who was born in Aurskog, near Oslo in Norway, on March 15 1866. Vaaler studied at Oslo university and took a degree in mathematics and science and was working for an engineering company that was commissioned by the Norwegian government to come up with ideas for making the civil service more efficient. Vaaler started messing around with bits of wire and came up with several different designs for the world's first paperclips. Because Norway had no patent law at this time, he filed his patents in Germany in 1899. He was granted an American patent in 1901, though he rapidly disappeared from the paperclip scene for reasons that are unclear. He either didn't realise the huge financial potential of his invention, or he couldn't raise the money to go into business. Either way, he now had competition. In the US, a slightly different design of paperclip had been patented by Cornelius J. Brosnan of Springfield, Massachusetts in 1900. It was being marketed as the Konaclip.
The paperclip in its commonest modern form, i.e. the one with the double-oval shape, was British. It was produced by Gem Manufacturing Ltd and marketed as "the slide-on paper-holder that securely holds your letters, documents or memoranda until you wish to release them". Before the First World War, the Gem Clip had established its dominance in the world's markets. In fact, we paperclip-collectors still know it to this day as the Gem Clip. Different designs come and go, but the only one ever to challenge the Gem's predominance is the Owl Clip; this is usually square or rectangular in outline, and with two eye-shaped circles in the middle, giving the vague appearance of an owl's face. Owl Clips are popular with some paperclip-users as they don't get tangled with one another and they don't tend to snag in other papers that don't belong with them.
The world consumes stupendous quantities of paperclips nowadays. In the US alone, some eleven billion of them are bought annually. What is all the more remarkable about this is how few of them are actually used for holding bits of paper together. In one of those flippant surveys that companies often commission to get themselves some free publicity, Lloyds Bank claimed, a couple of years back, that of every 100,000 paperclips in the States:
19,143 are used as poker chips
17,200 hold clothing together
15,556 are dropped and lost
14,163 are absentmindedly destroyed during telephone calls
8,504 clean pipes and nails
5,434 become toothpicks
While only five are employed for the purpose for which they were designed.
Meanwhile, Johann Vaaler was never forgotten in his home country. There is a memorial to him in Oslo in the form of a statue of a giant paperclip. This isn't some bit of loony eccentricity; Norwegians have a strong sentimental regard for Vaaler's invention - for an excellent reason. . . During the Second World War, after German forces invaded and occupied Norway, an order was issued prohibiting people from wearing badges and brooches bearing the initials of their exiled king. So people started fixing paperclips to their clothes instead; to collars and lapels and cuffs and hemlines. The paperclip was a Norwegian invention, and its function was to bind things together, and so it became a symbol of patriotism and of solidarity against the invaders.
© Eugene Byrne, 2001
The history of fastening bits of paper together begins in medieval times when clerics and lawyers would cut parallel incisions in the upper left hand corners of bits of paper or parchment and thread lengths of ribbon through them. Some time later, sealing-wax came along, so people could fix bits of paper together with this as well. More than half a millennium was to pass before anyone made a serious effort to improve on these systems.
In 1835 a New York doctor named John Ireland Howe invented the first practical machine for making pins, and in no time at all, people everywhere were using Howe's straight pins to fasten papers together. For most of the 19th century, the pin's predominance remained unchallenged, and clerical workers kept pricking themselves and dying of unpleasant diseases as a result.
The paperclip as we know and love it today was invented by Johann Vaaler, who was born in Aurskog, near Oslo in Norway, on March 15 1866. Vaaler studied at Oslo university and took a degree in mathematics and science and was working for an engineering company that was commissioned by the Norwegian government to come up with ideas for making the civil service more efficient. Vaaler started messing around with bits of wire and came up with several different designs for the world's first paperclips. Because Norway had no patent law at this time, he filed his patents in Germany in 1899. He was granted an American patent in 1901, though he rapidly disappeared from the paperclip scene for reasons that are unclear. He either didn't realise the huge financial potential of his invention, or he couldn't raise the money to go into business. Either way, he now had competition. In the US, a slightly different design of paperclip had been patented by Cornelius J. Brosnan of Springfield, Massachusetts in 1900. It was being marketed as the Konaclip.
The paperclip in its commonest modern form, i.e. the one with the double-oval shape, was British. It was produced by Gem Manufacturing Ltd and marketed as "the slide-on paper-holder that securely holds your letters, documents or memoranda until you wish to release them". Before the First World War, the Gem Clip had established its dominance in the world's markets. In fact, we paperclip-collectors still know it to this day as the Gem Clip. Different designs come and go, but the only one ever to challenge the Gem's predominance is the Owl Clip; this is usually square or rectangular in outline, and with two eye-shaped circles in the middle, giving the vague appearance of an owl's face. Owl Clips are popular with some paperclip-users as they don't get tangled with one another and they don't tend to snag in other papers that don't belong with them.
The world consumes stupendous quantities of paperclips nowadays. In the US alone, some eleven billion of them are bought annually. What is all the more remarkable about this is how few of them are actually used for holding bits of paper together. In one of those flippant surveys that companies often commission to get themselves some free publicity, Lloyds Bank claimed, a couple of years back, that of every 100,000 paperclips in the States:
19,143 are used as poker chips
17,200 hold clothing together
15,556 are dropped and lost
14,163 are absentmindedly destroyed during telephone calls
8,504 clean pipes and nails
5,434 become toothpicks
While only five are employed for the purpose for which they were designed.
Meanwhile, Johann Vaaler was never forgotten in his home country. There is a memorial to him in Oslo in the form of a statue of a giant paperclip. This isn't some bit of loony eccentricity; Norwegians have a strong sentimental regard for Vaaler's invention - for an excellent reason. . . During the Second World War, after German forces invaded and occupied Norway, an order was issued prohibiting people from wearing badges and brooches bearing the initials of their exiled king. So people started fixing paperclips to their clothes instead; to collars and lapels and cuffs and hemlines. The paperclip was a Norwegian invention, and its function was to bind things together, and so it became a symbol of patriotism and of solidarity against the invaders.
© Eugene Byrne, 2001
