Slide Clips (A Product Review)
Some of you folks may remember this post: mind.Depositor: template and leather jacket sharing. The jacket described used these neat sliding clamp/clips - pictured here and here. If you look at the thread, you will see I asked about the clips and then answered my own question, having discovered Levenger's Clippies . Wandering thru this person's blog, I found a link to a Flickr set showing construction detail: mind.Depositor - how to create a cover for your GTD/Hipster PDA index cards
Now then, a few days ago, I was surfing and stumbled across Slide-Clips.com. The site does not yet have its online store plugged in, so I followed the links and eventually made a phone call that put me in touch with a very kind gentleman named Peter who just joined the site (at my suggestion) with a username of "Slide-Clips".
I mentioned Levenger's Clippies and Peter tells me that Slide Clips are not exactly the same. Levenger's are made in China, Slide Clips in Japan. So I placed an order with him that arrived yesterday.
Here's what I ordered: This is a small pack of mall plastic clips, a small pack of large plastic clips, a pack of XL metal clips, and one pack each of two sizes of magnetic clips.
Here are the prices Peter quoted me:
| Small Plastic Clips (10 pack) | $2.19 |
| Small Plastic Clips (30 pack) | $4.99 |
| Small Plastic Clips (100 pack) | $14.79 |
| Largel Plastic Clips (5 pack) | $1.99 |
| Largel Plastic Clips (10 pack) | $3.49 |
| Largel Plastic Clips (20 pack) | $6.49 |
| Small Metal Clips (30 pack) | $4.98 |
| Large Metal Clips (20 pack) | $6.69 |
| XL Metal Clips (10 pack) | $6.09 |
| Small Magnetic Clips (10 pack) | $6.59 |
| Large Magnetic Clips (4 pack) | $9.89 |
While Levenger Clippies come in a tin with 12 large and 24 small for $16 (currently on sale for $14)
I like these. I think you will, too. You can phone or e-mail Slide-Clips until thy get their web site finished.
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THANKS
Thanks, ygor! These things are so nifty! I may have to order some to be sent to my wife while she's in the States in April. I think these are better than binder clips, because there are no "wings" to have to fold down. And I like the colorful plastic over the metal. Maybe not for something "bound" like in the original post, but for what I want, the colors will help. Thanks again!
-Jon
These look great!
Can you comment on how many sheets each size holds? I think I can make it out from the product shots on the website, but that's just the manufacturer's statement anyway.
Actually, since I'm likely to use these with a hPDA or microPDA, I'm interested in how many, say, standard notecards or normaly weight business cards each size can hold.
Thanks for the review!
Slide clips
We've been using something very like this at my workplace for a few years. I think they come from Japan but they're definitely not Levenger. They're called "Mori Clips" here and come in many different colours. They're made by Carl - that's a company name not a person :) .
They're very useful and popular around the office. I guess it must be one of those things that's better known in Australia than the USA.
Jon,
the smaller clips I've used hold about 25 to 30 sheets of paper, the larger ones hold maybe 50 or so sheets. My senior execs like their reports to be clipped using them as, unlike folding clips and bulldog clips, there are no loops to catch on other clips, pages etc.
P.S. It's great to hear that Slide Clips are bringing cheaper slide on clips to the USA. Enjoy them guys!
A bit of Googling says...
http://www.carlmfg.com/us/carl/News/about.htm
Carl is a Japan based company. The pictures I found for Carl Mori Clips looked identical. I would guess that they all probably come from the same source.
Another interesting tidbit is a Binding Machine they make. It looks a lot like the Rollabind/Levenger Portable Punch. I guess this is where the idea came from.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson)
more googling
That's a cute portable comb binder.
Definitely not a rollabind/levenger invention but perhaps the size of a binder like this inspired the portable punches. I've seen a few mini-comb-binders over the years
A bit of googling led me to this very interesting document about the history of binding https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/5645/libra...
It gives the following dates
- the first wire binding patent in the USA was issued to German inventor in 1924
- But the first true spiral binding was patented in 1934 by Frenchman Samuel Groener.
- In 1934 the first Comb-type plastic binding was also patented but it didn't take off as a product until plastics were more available after WW2.
So wire and comb binding weren't invented that far before Atoma developed the disc system, in time to start selling disc-bound notebooks in 1948
Wandering back on topic - yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the nori clips were exactly the same as the slide clips.
As Australia's a very small market (only 22 million people) it's rarer to see a company repackage or rename goods, eg if Levenger was an Australian company importing clippies then the clippies would be more likely to be in their Chinese packaging with a Levenger sticker on the outside. And it would be unlikely that they would be engraved with Levenger's name.
Thanks
ygor,
Thank you for your review, I'm happy with the Large binder clip on my Hipster, but I might have to get my cube neighbor some for his post it note version.
in other news:
As I was getting a ticket for speeding today, the officer complimented me on being organized, if he only knew.
Prices updated
Peter sent me an e-mail to tell me the prices I posted were a bit outdated. He was kind enough to include the current prices which I put in place above.
If you have been to the web site, there is one product I did not talk about here called "Pinch Clips"
Peter sent me a sample pack. I will get a review up in a day or three as schedule permits.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson)
Anyone in the Northampton
Anyone in the Northampton Mass area can find these in the wonderful and amazing ACME Surplus store in Thorton's. I forget the price, but they're sold individually, not in a package.
Are These Slide Clips/Mori Clips Available Anywhere?
Well, now that Levenger has continued their trend of discontinuing all the products that I love (Clippies are now gone too!) I just found this posting about similar clips, called Slide Clips and Mori Clips. However I am not finding these around either. Does anyone know where I can get some?
Thanks!
Jim
Did you try...?
Slide-Clips.com ?
I just did and eventually got to this: http://www.techtradellc.com/slideclips.shtml
And a bit of Google-ing found them at Lincoln Stationers
Enjoy.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson) ***
Slide-Clips.com is the same
Slide-Clips.com is the same as the second link you posted, and while they show the slide-clips you can't purchase any there - their Purchase page only shows how to purchase Their gloves and Ready-Heat products. Their international distributors include none in the US and the rest are distributors who only take really large orders.
Thank you for the Lincoln Stationers link; that one looks promising.
Jim
Mori Clips...
are made in Japan, but they appear in lots of Australian office supply sites.
http://www.melbourneofficeexpress.com.au/product_info.php?pr...
http://www.okoffice.com.au/product.asp?pID=43103&cID=2290
See Katrina's comments in this thread. She lives in Australia.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson) ***
Mori clips aka slide clips
Just to add to ygor's message ...
this site lists the Mori Clips available in Australia, it appears to be an industrial supplier
http://www.pelikanartline.com.au/index.php?option=com_conten...
Many Australian suppliers don't sell overseas. This supplier doesn't say that they won't ... however they don't say they will either.
http://www.officemax.com.au/office-supplies/stationery/clips...
You can see that they're quite expensive here. Australian ebay would also be worthwhile keeping an eye on (ebay.com.au) for good discounts, although don't forget to allow for international postage.
The clips are also sold in New Zealand
slider clips
nice review. :)
i am a big fan of patrick ng, and what i would like to know is what size slider clips he used for the mind depositor v1...