Michael1942's Blog

The modern pocket protector, a device first patented in 1902 (as far as we know) by H.C. Dexter. The original product was a firm, slim wire shaped like a semi circle with a flexible fabric which fits in a pocket or purse. Later improved versions patented by H. Smith and Gerson Strassberg ( a small war ensued).Short story and history follows.The pocket protector was invented during World War II by Hurley Smith while he was working in Buffalo, New York. He was awarded US 2417786 for the device on March 18, 1947; the patent was filed on June 3, 1943.
A competing claim for the invention is from Long Island plastics magnate Gerson Strassberg around 1952. Strassberg was working on plastic sleeves for bank books. One day he placed one that he was working on into his shirt pocket while he took a phone call. When he noticed it there, he realized it would make a great product.
“I stuck the half-made passbook holder into my pocket; the front of it sort of fell over, and while I was talking on the phone, I also stuck my pen in there,” recalls Strassberg, a young development engineer working at a Brooklyn company at the time. “When I got off the phone, I looked and said, `Holy smoke, this is great. ”
To this day, says Strassberg, the mayor of Roslyn Harbor, N.Y., “I haven’t the foggiest idea” what the call was about. Nor can he remember the name of the caller. All he knows is that his hasty response caused a small accident.
No, not an ink-stained shirt pocket — an accidental discovery: one of the first known pocket protectors. “It was the unfinished bank passbook holder,” he says. Thus inspired to use the same vinyl welding technique on a few more passbook holders, then a few more, he knew he could be on to something.
Indeed, Strassberg was. The kid from the Bronx, weaned on Buck Rogers and modern science and schooled in electrical engineering at City College, had just created a small but significant icon for the soon-to-dawn world of geekdom. The low-heat welding technique popularized during World War II, which uses a combination of physical pressure and high-frequency radio waves to fuse sheets of vinyl, had just affixed Strassberg securely to his own future.
Soon, he would seem to have the world in his pocket. And vice versa: The common sense and simple style of the small plastic accessory was to become geek chic among the slide-rule set.
Strassberg’s move from the Brooklyn factory in 1956 to a partnership in a manufacturing plant in Queens set the pocket-protector machinery in motion. It cranked out nearly 1 million of them a year, and the popular protectors retailed for about a quarter. He declined to disclose his revenue.
Today, lower-priced competition from overseas manufacturers, plus a decline in overall demand for pocket protectors, has the same factory where Strassberg eventually became president producing about 30,000 of them a year (now retailing for about $1 apiece). It’s a negligible blip on the production map at a business creating more than 200 other products, ranging from artists’ portfolios to file folders and other office-supply
pocket protector is a sheath designed to hold writing instruments and other small implements, such as slide rules, while preventing them from damaging the wearer’s shirt pocket (e.g., by tearing or staining by a leaky pen). The pocket protector is designed to fit neatly inside the breast pocket of a shirt, and may accommodate pens, pencils, screwdrivers, small slide rules, and various other small items. A flap overlapping the pocket exterior helps to secure the pocket protector in place.
Originally fashioned from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), pocket protectors were first marketed toward corporations as branded promotional fare. However, a more general market for the product soon arose, made up of students, engineers (prominently mechanical), and white-collar workers in sundry fields. Ever notice that no one in Congress appears to use a pocket protector?