Tag Archives: Stationery

Safety pins – whenever you need them, they are nowhere to be found.

• Safety pins are an invention consisting of a clasp and a pin, and is a variant of a pin.
• While safety pins have many uses, they are frequently used to attach fabric items to each other, without the danger of accidentally stabbing one’s self with the pin.
• Safety pins are generally made of a metal wire such as stainless steel or brass, and the length of wire is curled in the middle to form a basic spring.
• The ancestor of the safety pin, called a ‘fibula’, is thought to have been an invention of the Ancient Greek Mycenaean community, and it was used as a brooch, as well as a pin to hold clothes together.
• The safety pin was invented in 1849 by the American Walter Hunt, a mechanic, who created it while fiddling with a length of wire.

• The safety pin patent was sold for $400 USD, which equates to roughly $10,000 USD in 2008 to W R Grace Company in 1849, while Hunt is said to have used some of the money to pay a small debt owed to a friend.
• The clasp of a safety pin is used to secure the pin closed and prevent it from poking the user.
• From the 1970s, safety pins were a common item worn by those who embraced punk fashion, both on clothes and as piercings.
• In countries such as Turkey, where good luck charms are made with beads attached to safety pins, there is a high incidence of ingesting the pins by young children, who accidentally swallow them.
• Numerous improvements to safety pins were made during the late 1800s and early 1900s, although it wasn’t until 1907, that pins had a clasps similar to the modern style clasp.

Bibliography:
Kershner K, Who invented the safety pin?, 2015, HowStuffWorks, http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/who-invented-the-safety-pin1.htm

Safety Pin, 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_pin

A Visual History of the Safety Pin, n.d, The Museums of Everyday Design, http://museumofeverydaylife.org/exhibitions-collections/current-exhibitions/a-visual-history-of-the-safety-pin

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Do erasers ever rub you the wrong way?

• Erasers are inventions used to clear markings from an object, which is most often paper, and before they were invented, wax, bread, a mixture of oat bran and milk, pumice or sandstone were used to remove markings from a writing surface.
• An ‘eraser’, once called a ‘lead-eater’, is also known as a ‘rubber’, which was the original term for the object due to the rubbing motion required to use it, while the natural material caoutchouc also became known as ‘rubber’ due to its use as an erasing tool.
• The type of markings commonly removed by a rubber are those made with a pencil, generally graphite, although, ink, chalk and whiteboard pen marks are also able to removed with an appropriate eraser.
• The base material of erasers is generally synthetic or natural rubber, plastic, vinyl or gum, although felt and other fibres are used for those that have the purpose of clearing whiteboard markers and chalk.
• The discovery of caoutchouc or rubber as a useful tool for erasing, was made in the mid 1700s, and in 1770, Englishman Joseph Priestly, a scientist and theologian is said to have named the ‘eraser’, which was a later American term for the tool, a ‘rubber’.

• Erasers vary in colour, and are commonly white, but can range from pink to grey, and are typically found in a bar shape or as a cylinder on the end of a pencil, while some come in a kneadable or electric form.
• Most rubber erasers undergo the process of vulcanisation, which was discovered in 1839 by American chemist Charles Goodyear, which significantly increases the rubber’s usability and long lasting nature.
• The modern eraser, although unvulcanised at the time, is believed to have been primarily commercialised by Englishman Edward Nairne, an optician, in 1770, when he was selling cubes of rubber for the purpose of erasing.
• Erasers generally remove markings, such as graphite, by collecting the marking’s particles in the rubber’s compound, as the rubber has greater adhesive properties than the erased surface.
• Erasers can come in a wide variety of different shapes, sizes and colours that are commonly collected, although these more collectible orientated rubbers generally erase poorly.

Bibliography:
Eraser, 2015, How Products Are Made, http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Eraser.html

Eraser, 2015, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraser

Garber M, 10 Things You Probably Did Not Know About Eraser Technology, 2013, The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/10-things-you-probably-did-not-know-about-eraser-technology/279028/

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Do you consider cheques ancient or commonplace?

• A cheque is a slip of paper that directs a bank to give the payee money, from the bank account of a person, known as the ‘drawer’, who issued the slip.
• ‘Cheque’ is a British English term, and it is known in the United States as a ‘check’, and it is also considered as a type of ‘bill of exchange’.
• Cheques were invented as an easy and relatively safe way to obtain and hold money of large quantities, and they were originally known as ‘drawn notes’.
• Early types of cheques were in use in 321 to 185 BC in India, Asia, named ‘adeshas’, and were particularly similar to the modern invention, and a similar idea was used in Ancient Rome from around 100 BC.
• The first use of early cheques in European society were in Europe’s Venice in the 1200s, for trade purposes, and the practice of issuing bills of exchange became more widespread a few hundred years later, and were very common by the 1700s when banks were more commonplace.

Cheques
Image courtesy of DonkeyHotey/Flickr

• Cheques are commonly obtained in a booklet form, generally with pre-printed details of the drawer, and this practice emerged in the early 1800s.
• With the introduction of more practical, efficient and cost effective technology, cheque use is decreasing rapidly and they are no longer used in some countries.
• Cheques generally have the details of the drawer’s bank account number, the person the money is to be given to, the bank that issued the slip, and the amount of money to be given.
• Cheques often expire after a certain time frame, ranging typically from 6 months to 15 months, if they have not been banked or cashed.
• Cheques are usually smaller than a standard size piece of paper, although the largest one issued spanned 12 by 25 metres (39 by 82 feet), although large ones are usually for display and promotional purposes.

Bibliography:
Cheque, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque

THE ROLE OF CHEQUES IN AN EVOLVING PAYMENTS SYSTEM, 2011, Australian Payments Clearing Association, http://www.apca.com.au/docs/role-of-cheques—consultations/future-of-cheques.pdf

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Do you ever take ballpoint pens for granted?

• A ballpoint pen is a pen that distributes ink along a writing surface, and it has a very small ball in the writing tip that moves in the process.
• ‘Ballpoint pens’ are also known as ‘biros’, ‘ball pens’ and ‘Biromes’.
• The main design of a ballpoint pen originated from an 1888 patent for a pen that could write on leather, by leather tanner John Loud, an American, but the design was unsuitable for writing on paper.
• Practical ballpoint pens were patented in 1938 by an editor of a Hungarian newspaper, László Bíró, which led to the common name of the modern pen, ‘biro’.
• Ballpoint pens were introduced to America by Milton Reynolds, an American entrepreneur, who changed Bíró’s design in the mid 1940s, although it wasn’t until the 1950s that a more reliable pen was invented by Marcel Bich in France, that did not leak and had smooth ink flow, and was sold under the name ‘Bic’.

• Ballpoint pens can be disposable or refillable, often with a removable lid or a replaceable tip and reservoir, as well as retractable tips that retract back into the pen cylinder.
• Ballpoint pens are the most commonly used writing instrument, and they are also used by some artists in their artwork, although any mistakes made generally cannot be removed, unless a pen with erasable ink is used.
• Ballpoint pens range in colour and designs, and most often have ink coloured blue or black, and the next most popular ink colours are red and green.
• Due to the availability of mass production, ballpoint pens have become increasingly cheaper and are more commonly used.
• Ballpoint pens range in numerous shapes and sizes, leading some to become collector’s items; while some brands have been featured in the United State’s New York Museum of Modern Art, including the Bic Cristal pen.

Bibliography:
Ballpoint Pen, 2006, The Great Idea Finder, http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/ballpen.htm

Ballpoint Pen, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen

The History of the Ballpoint Pen, 2002, Cosmopolis, http://www.cosmopolis.ch/english/cosmo30/history_ballpoint_pen.htm

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