On January 31, 1930 or 1928, 3M began marketing Scotch Tape...

[IcyPeas]

Link to tweet

?s=19

Link to tweet

?s=19

[Drahthaardogs]

1. I can remember the commercials around Christmas

With the hands showing how invisible it was

[jmowreader]

10. That was the Magic Tape

Funny story: The newspaper in St. Maries, ID, used to sell office supplies at the newspaper office. My sister was the typesetter there, and had to sell office supplies when the need arose. Well...one Christmas a woman came to the store asking for "the shiniest tape you have." 3M was running commercials claiming everyone's Christmas would be ruined if you didn't use Magic Tape to wrap gifts, so this lady wanted the shiny stuff to see if it really would ruin anyone's Christmas. (Apparently it did not.)

[mobeau69]

2. What's that pic "Basement" about?

Looks like a cutaway showing a wood screw and a screwdriver blade. Where’s the tape?

[IcyPeas]

3. If you click in the picture you will see the obscured text

[mobeau69]

4. I did and the writer pasted a note over the verbiage at the bottom.

At least it’s covered on my phone. What does it say?

[yonder]

5. I'm guessing something about holding a screw

to the driver till you get it started.

[tblue37]

6. Put tape, sticky side out, on screwdriver so screws and bolts will stick tight to reach

hard-to-reach jobs. (I shortened the statement, but covered the meaning.)

[ShazzieB]

7. Here's what I see...

"Hard-to-reach repair jobs are simplified by putting "Scotch" Brand Tape (sticky side out) on screwdriver end. Screws and slotted bolts stick tight."

[yonder]

8. Remember the SNL skit about the tape store in the mall?

That was all they sold, Scotch tape.

[pressbox69]

12. I remember

I think Dan Akroid and Garrett Morris were making fun of the couple who ran the store.

[frazzled]

9. Amazingly, it hasn't really been replaced or dropped in all these years

That’s a pretty long stretch for a product.

I pretty much use it only for wrapping presents (no plastic aprons or ripped window shades to repair), but once in a while we find a novel use for it. Like once we taped something or other to a chopstick to get to a chunk of lint that had dropped down a slot in the dryer. Thanks 3M!

[jmowreader]

11. Just so you know...

Naphtha will dissolve the glue on regular Scotch tape, but not the glue on Magic Tape.

We drum scanner operators use naphtha when we mount transparencies to the drums of our scanners. (Long story.) There is an official Scanner Mounting Tape that can stand up to naphtha, but it's $50 per roll. I believe one would have to be out of his or her fucking mind to pay fifty bucks for a roll of tape, so I researched the matter and found Magic Tape has the same glue on it that Scanner Mounting Tape uses...so I bought a roll of Magic Tape and tried it. Worked like a champ.

[pressbox69]

13. I use it to make

Last edited Mon Feb 1, 2021, 08:16 AM - Edit history (1)

sculptures made out of colored paper.

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[IcyPeas]

14. how fun.

so these are made with colored paper then wrapped in scotch tape? very imaginative.

[pressbox69]

16. Thank you.

I sent one of Howard Stern back in 94, when he started his E Show. On the first episode he showed off things that the fans sent him. This was when Howard did a but bongo video. It was of Howard with a bikini girl in his lap and him doing his but-bongo thing. "Imaginative" was the same word Robin Quivers used to describe it. I guess Howard liked it because there's a youtube interview with Norm MacDonald from 98 and there's my sculpture to the right of MacDonald's head. Howard didn't mention my name but I didn't care because I was a big fan of the show back in those days.

[LeftInTX]

15. And the chore of giftwrapping was created!

[DFW]

17. The brand become so associated with the product that there was no other name for it in some places

In France, especially, they never ask for "bande collante," but just "avez-vous du Scotch?" And they mean the tape, not Johnny Walker.

Same thing in Germany, except that the most prevalent brand here is made by the Tesa company, and in Germany they just say "Tesafilm."

Funny story, I once made the serious error of thinking that "Tesafilm" was used in the whole German-speaking world. Once, while in Zürich, Switzerland, I was in an office and needed to tape something up, and asked, in Zürich dialect, for some Tesafilm. After a few blank stares, one of the office workers asked me "was isch das (what is that)?" I answered, "epis zum kläbe (something to stick together)." She said that must be some German expression, because in Swiss German, it was called Kläberli. Hearing this, one of the others laughed, and said, "you silly Basel woman, maybe over in Basel it is called Kläberli, but here in Zürich (all of 50 miles away), we call it Chloiberli." I said I gave up, if two cities 80 Km apart can't agree on what Scotch Tape is called, how was I supposed to know? They all just laughed, and said, "das isch de Schwyz (that's Switzerland)."