Ward - The perfection of the paper clip : curious tales of invention, accidental genius, and stationery obsession

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Copyright 2014 by James Ward

Originally published as Adventures in Stationery in Great Britain in 2014 by Profile Books Ltd.

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First Touchstone hardcover edition April 2015

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Jacket design based on design by Nathan Burton

Illustrations on pages reproduced courtesy of iStock. All other text illustrations from the authors collection Additional photography of items by Micheline Mannion at Profile Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ward, James, 1981

The perfection of the paper clip : curious tales of invention, accidental genius, and stationery obsession / James Ward.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

1. New productsHistory. 2. Office equipment and suppliesHistory. 3. InventorsHistory. I. Title.

TS171.W37 2015

651'.2dc23 2014047234

ISBN 978-1-4767-9986-5

ISBN 978-1-4767-9988-9 (ebook)

I n the edition that was published in the U.K. we had the title Adventures in Stationery . But there was concern in the United States that stationery didnt have the same meaning in the States that it has in England. This book is really about the objects sitting on your desk and littering your book bag, not just fancy paper and letterhead. In these pages I try to get at the origins of the many useful and essential items that I find fascinating, like the genius design behind the simple paper clip. But please do not think The Perfection of the Paper Clip is just about paper clips. While I would someday love to write such a book, there are many more stories here... about the creation of the pencil, the pen, the stapler, the binder clip, about how the perfect size came to be for a sheet of paper, and even about a few items that dont seem to have a translation on your shores, like the pencil case.

So why am I to be your guide on this stationery adventure? Well, first off, I am a collector of what I tongue in cheek refer to as boring things, and Im possibly just shy of a hoarder of free pens and complementary postcards. As a child, I would regularly visit Fowlers, an independent stationer on the high street in the small town where I grew up. This shop had always interested me. Yes, there was a bigger WHSmith at the bottom of the hill, and, yes, I spent quite a lot of time looking at pens in there, too, but it wasnt the same. Fowlers seemed more serious about stationery. WHSmith had books and magazines and toys and sweets and videos. Fowlers was more dedicated. They sold different types of clips and tags, not the sort they sold in Smiths. They had hanging file folders. Office supplies. Grown-up things. It was a quiet shop. Ponderous. A bit like a library. Or at least half of it was. The other half was given over to greeting cards and wrapping paper and cheap gifts. That side didnt interest me. But this halfmy halfcaptivated me with its racks of pens and pencils. I would spend long periods of time here studying these objects. Picking them up, turning them over in my hand. Sometimes Id even buy something.

A few years ago, I returned to Fowlers. It was still the same as I remembered it; very little had changed. Even the man behind the counter was the same. There wasnt anything in particular that I needed, but I wandered around the store, letting my eyes drift from item to item. Behind some packets of index cards (Silvine, 204 mm 127 mm, ruled), I saw a rather tatty-looking box. It was square, about six inches by six inches and about two inches tall. On the top, in white lettering on a lurid pink background, it said VELOS 1377REVOLVING DESK TIDY , and underneath in slightly smaller writing Six compartments with cover next to a black-and-white picture of the revolving desk tidy itself. I picked it up. Id never heard of Velos before, and, looking at the box, Im not surprised. This desk tidy (known in the States as a desk organizer) was quite possibly older than me. The box looked like it must have been from the late 1970s. It was covered in dust. It didnt look like anyone had picked it up for years; it had just been stuck at the back of a shelf, forgotten about. I had to own it. I took it to the counter to pay. The man behind the counter looked for a bar code, but there wasnt oneit came from a time before bar-code scanners. Fortunately, it had a faded price sticker in one corner. The man behind the counter shrugged, keyed the price into the till, and, as I paid, he made a note of the item in a little stock book.

When I got home, I opened the box carefullyI didnt want to tear it. Inside, there it was: the 1377 Revolving Desk Tidy. The desk tidy was in perfect conditionnot surprising as, despite its age, Id effectively bought it as new. Small and round and moulded in high impact styrene, it had a transparent cover showing its six compartments. The round tidy was divided into six segments for all types of small sundries, and looked a bit like a grapefruit cut across the middle. The cover had an opening the same size as one of the compartments and a little lid you could slide across to open or close. You could spin the whole thing around so whichever compartment you wanted to access was under the opening, allowing you to reach in and take some paper clips or drawing pins or whatever else you decided to fill your six compartments with (the picture on the cover showed the desk tidy empty; there was no serving suggestionVelos customers were trusted to use their initiative).

As well as the desk tidy itself, the Velos box also included a small leaflet listing the other products in the same range, which also fed my obsession. What a world it would be if my desk included the full series of office basics:

There was a selection from the Velos range of Staplers & Staples:

They also had perforators and hole punches: