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User:DefenseSupportParty/Paperclip

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A few paper clips of different colors.
Small metal paper clip, with measure in centimeters.

A paper clip (or sometimes paperclip) is a piece of plastic or metal that is used to hold pieces of paper together.

Shape

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A paper clip is usually a thin wire in a shape that is wrapped in on itself that is used to hold two or more pieces of paper together by pressure. Some other kinds of paper clips use two pieces.

The type of wire paper clip that is usually used was never patented. It was first made by "The Gem Manufacturing Company" at some point in the 1890s. The first time Gem was mentioned was in 1883, but historians don't think this is when they began making paper clips.[1] The first advertisement for paper clips was in August 1984. [2] The "Gem" name was trademarked in the United States in 1904. The trademark paperwork said that the paper clip had been sold since March 1892.

It has been said [3][4][5] that Herbert Spencer invented the paper clip.

It is known that the paper clip was well known by 1899, a patent was given that year for a "Machine for make wire paper clips" to William Middlebrook on April 27. The drawing in the patent shows a Gem paper clip.[6] There are many varieties of paper clips. Some have pointy ends instead of round ones. Some have a bent end so it is easier to put paper in. Some of them have wires with bumps so they hold the paper better. Some paper clips are designed to look good. They are sometimes in a triangle or a circle.[7] The original design is still the most popular, though.

Norway's claim

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Johan Vaaler in 1887.
 
The paper clip patented by Johan Vaaler in 1899 and 1901.
 
The giant paper clip in Sandvika, Norway.

A Norwegian, Johan Vaaler (1866–1910), has sometimes been called the inventor of the paper clip. He was given patents in Germany[8] and in the United States[9] for a paper clip of a different design that wasn't as good as the Gem version. Vaaler probably did not know that a better product was being sold, Gem wasn't selling paper clips in Norway yet.

After Vaaler died, some Norwegians made a myth that the paper clip was invented by a Norwegian genius. Dictionaries since the 1950s have said that Vaaler is the inventor of the paper clip, [10], dictionaries in other countries sometimes say this now too.

Vaaler was probably given a patent in other countries because patent laws in the 1800s weren't as tough as they are today.[11] Vaaler worked in a patent office, and could have given himself a patent very easily.[12]

Vaaler's patents expired, and the Gem paper clip was used around the world, including in Norway. His device didn't work as well as the Gem version because it was hard to put pieces of paper in it, and it didn't look as good when there was paper in it.

National symbol

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The person who started the Norwegian paper clip myth was a person who worked for Norway's patent office. He visited Germany in the 1920s to get patents for some Norwegian inventions. He came across Vaaler's patent, and didn't realize that it wasn't the same as the Gem paper clip.[13] In a pamphlet put out by the patent office in celebration of its first 50 years, he wrote about how Vaaler was the inventor of the paper clip.[14] This was put into many Norwegian encyclopedias after World War II.

Events of that war contributed greatly to the mythical status of the paper clip. Patriots wore them in their lapels as a symbol of resistance to the German occupiers and local Nazi authorities when other signs of resistance were forbidden, such as flag pins or pins showing the cipher of the exiled King Haakon VII of Norway. The clips were meant to denote solidarity and unity ("we are bound together"). The wearing of paper clips was soon prohibited, and people wearing them could risk severe punishment.[15] Paper clips were not worn to support Jews, and those wearing them did not yet see them as national symbols. The myth of their Norwegian origin was not commonly known at the time.

The leading Norwegian encyclopedia mentioned the role of the paper clip as a symbol of resistance in a supplementary volume in 1952, but did not yet proclaim it a Norwegian invention.[16] That information was added in later editions. According to the 1974 edition, the idea of using the paper clip to denote resistance originated in France. A clip worn on a lapel or front pocket could be seen as "deux gaules" (two posts or poles) and be interpreted as a reference to the leader of the French Resistance, General Charles de Gaulle.[17]

The post-war years saw a wide-spread consolidation of the paper clip as a national symbol. Authors of books and articles on the history of Norwegian technology eagerly seized it to make a thin story more substantial. They chose to overlook the fact that Vaaler's clip was not the same as the fully developed Gem-type clip.[18] In 1989 a giant paper clip, almost 7 meters high, was erected on the campus of a commercial college near Oslo in honour of Vaaler, ninety years after his invention was patented. But this monument shows a Gem-type clip, not the one patented by Vaaler. The celebration of the alleged Norwegian origin of the paper clip culminated in 1999, one hundred years after Vaaller submitted his application for a German patent. A commemorative stamp was issued that year, the first in a series to draw attention to Norwegian inventiveness. The background shows a facsimile of the German "Patentschrift". However, the figure in the foreground is not the paper clip depicted on that document, but the much better-known "Gem". In 2005, the national biographical encyclopedia of Norway (Norsk biografisk leksikon) published the biography of Johan Vaaler, the inventor of the paper clip.[19]

Paper Clips Project

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Johan Vaaler's fame as the paper clip inventor has spread worldwide, especially in the United States. When eighth-graders at Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee were to learn about the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust, one teacher had the good idea of illustrating that mind-boggling number by collecting as many small and cheap objects—this was called the Paper Clips Project. According to one website, the paper clip was chosen "after they learned (that) Norwegians wore them on their clothes to show support for Jews during World War II".[20] Another site elaborates this story even further: "That symbol of resistance originally honored Johann Vaaler, the Norwegian Jew who invented the paper clip".[21] None of these statements are true.[citation needed] Vaaler was not a Jew, he did not invent the common paper clip, and Norwegians who wore them did not do so to protest the tragic fate of the Jews, but to show loyalty to the King and the Government, and opposition to the German occupation and local Nazi authorities.[citation needed] But the project was a success — far more than the required 6 million clips were collected.

During promotion of the film which documents the middle school project, the film's promoters contacted and partnered with Baumgarten's Office Products in Atlanta, Georgia. Baumgarten's is the company that manufactures Plastiklips and other fastening devices, constructed displays made of green plastic paper clips shaped into the Star of David to assist with the films promotion at theaters around the United States. Hans Baumgarten, Baumgarten's treasurer and his family of Jewish descent, left Nazi Germany, avoiding death camps.

Baumgarten's Plastiklip was invented by the German Kurt Lorber, who has been a partner with Baumgarten's since WWII.

Other uses

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Wire is versatile, and the most commonplace wire is in paper clips. Thus a paper clip is a useful accessory in many kinds of mechanical work including computer work: the metal wire can be unfolded with a little force. Several devices call for a very thin rod to push a recessed button which the user might only rarely need. This is seen on most CD-ROM drives as an "emergency eject" should the power fail; also on early floppy disk drives (including the early Macintosh). Both 1st generation iPhones and the iPhone 3G require a paper clip to eject the sim card and some Palm PDAs advise the use of a paper clip to reset the device. The track ball can be removed from early Logitech pointing devices using a paper clip as the key to the bezel. A paper clip bent into a "U" can be used to start an ATX PSU without connecting it to a motherboard (connect the green to a black on the Motherboard header). One or more paper clips can make a loopback device for a RS232 interface (or indeed many interfaces). A paper clip could be installed in a Commodore 1541 disk-drive as a flexible head-stop. Paper clips have been used (unsafely) to replace fuses.

Paper clips can be bent into a crude but sometimes effective lock picking device. Some types of handcuffs can be unchained using paper clips. There are two approaches. The first one is to unfold the clip in a line and then the end to be twisted in right angle trying to imitate a key and using it to lift the lock fixator. The second approach, which is more feasible but needs some practice, is to use the semi-unfolded clip kink for lifting when the clip is inserted through the hole where the handcuffs are closed.

Kyle MacDonald took one red paperclip and progressively traded it into a house. The Canadian blogger began with a red paper clip and posted it on Craigslist.org, later trading it for a pen. MacDonald kept trading things until he finally traded a movie role for a two-story house in Kipling, Saskatchewan.[22]

Other fastening devices

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Notes

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  1. ^ Petroski, Henry, "From Pins to Paper Clips", The Evolution of Useful Things, Vintage, New York, 1992.
  2. ^ History of the Paper Clip, Early Office Museum.
  3. ^ A series, episode 8 of QI.
  4. ^ Father Gregory Tillett, review of The Pharaoh's Shadow: Travels in Ancient and Modern Egypt by Anthony Sattin, The Glastonbury Review, Edition 104.
  5. ^ G. W. Trompf, "Radical Conservatism in Herbert Spencer's Educational Thought", British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Oct., 1969), pp. 267–280.
  6. ^ Petroski, Henry, "Paper Clips and Design", Invention by Design, Harvard University Press, 1996, p. 17.
  7. ^ Petroski, Henry, "Polishing the Gem: A First-Year Design Project". Appendix: A selected list of U.S. Patents for paper clips. Journal of Engineering Education, 1998, p. 449.
  8. ^ Application dated 12 November 1899, Patentschrift no. 121067, patent granted 6 June 1901
  9. ^ US Patent No. 675,761 June 4, 1901
  10. ^ "Binders" Aschehougs konversasjonsleksikon, Oslo 1975, vol. 2, p. 695.
  11. ^ Petroski, Henry "The Evolution of Artifacts", American Scientist, Volume 80, 1992, p. 416–20.
  12. ^ Johan Vaaler began working for Bryns Patentkontor in Kristiania in 1892 and was later promoted to office manager, a position he held until his death.
  13. ^ Vaaler's forgotten German patent was found by patent engineer Halvard Foss of The Norwegian Industrial Property Office (Patenstyret) while looking for patents granted to Norwegians in the German patent office. "I made this discovery known to my colleagues", Foss stated in an interview with the weekly A-magasinet no. 52, 1988
  14. ^ Foss, Halvard: "Den frittstående oppfinner", Styret for det industrielle rettsvern 50 år, Oslo 1961, p. 190
  15. ^ Bø, Finn: Forbuden frukt (First edition 1945), Oslo 1995, ISBN 82-509-3249-8
  16. ^ Aschehougs konversasjonsleksikon, supplementsbind, Oslo 1952
  17. ^ Aschehougs konversasjonsleksikon, Oslo 1974, Vol. 2, p. 695.
  18. ^ Hesstvedt, Ola: "Den lille norske hjelperen fyller 90 år", A-magasinet nr. 52, 1988
  19. ^ "Vaaler, Johan", Norsk biografisk leksikon, Kunnskapsforlaget, Oslo 2005. Vol. 9, p. 411, ISBN 82-573-1011-5
  20. ^ "Paper Clips 2004". Spotlight. Christian Answers.
  21. ^ "Paper Clip Project". ACF News Source.
  22. ^ one red paperclip

References

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  • Petroski, Henry. The Evolution of Useful Things. New York: Knopf, 1992. ISBN 0-679-74039-2. Includes a comprehensive history of the evolution of paper clip design.
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paperclips.

Patents

Category:Fasteners Category:Stationery Category:Office equipment

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