Robinson Reminders in print

[New Yorker, March 18, 1944.]

“Jot it down — Do it — Tear it out — Live notes only!” It’s like Getting Things Done with perforations. Note the clever names for the other products: Billminders and Miss Gadabout. Miss Gadabout!

Google Books has dingy-looking scans of Robinson Reminder advertisements from as early as 1915. The slogan — “Live notes only,” minus the exclamation point — was already in place. That slogan does seem to go with early-twentieth-century notions of efficiency. Clear the decks: history is bunk, right?

Here, from 1921, sharpened, straightened, and neatened up, is the patent for the Robinson Reminder:



If you cannot get enough of the Robinson Reminder, A Continuous Lean has a post with some fine photographs.

Previously on Orange Crate Art
Pocket notebook sighting (a Robinson Reminder in the movies)

Recently updated

Pocket notebook sighting Sergeant Mickey Ferguson’s notebook is a Robinson Reminder. Thanks, Adair!

Neatening up

[Before and after.]

What I’m about to suggest might be common knowledge, but perhaps not. The paint-can tool in an image editor offers an easy way to neaten up a scan from Google Books (or from anywhere). Choose a color (perhaps with an eyedropper tool) and pour. Digital artifacts, begone.

The image above is from Google Books, an illustration of the Robinson Reminder pocket notebook. I used the paint-can tool in a more elaborate way last week after scanning a page from Hart’s Guide to New York City. When I pressed hard to get the text on a verso page, chunks of the text from the recto page came through. So I aimed and poured, and poured again and again.

[I like Seashore, a free image-editor for OS X.]

Pocket notebook sighting

[Click for a larger view.]

Anthony Mann’s film Railroaded! (1947) is an Orange Crate Art two-fer, as it features both a pocket notebook and a telephone exchange name. The notebook belongs to police sergeant Mickey Ferguson (Hugh Beaumont). Dig the perforations! A pocket looseleaf-notebook plays an important role in Mann’s T-Men (1947).

If it’s difficult to make out: the word stamped into the leather of this high-class item, far left, is CARDS.

June 27: In the comments, Adair has identified this notebook as a Robinson Reminder. Here’s a picture of one that sold at Etsy.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Extras : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The House on 92nd Street : The Lodger : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : The Palm Beach Story : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Quai des Orfèvres : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : The Sopranos : Spellbound : T-Men : Union Station

[Yes, there are all kinds of ways to watch movies.]

Pocket notebook sighting

[Dr. Gregory Jessup (Oliver Blake) gives Alan Eaton (Dana Andrews) the name and address of a residential hotel. From The Fearmakers (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1958). Click any image for a larger view.]

I wonder if that notebook might be a Robinson Reminder, or something similar. The neatly torn-off slip of paper looks smaller than the notebook itself.

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : The Bad and the Beautiful : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : The Case of the Howling Dog : Cat People : Caught : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : Deep Valley : The Devil and Miss Jones : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : A Foreign Affair : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : I See a Dark Stranger : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : M : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : Now, Voyager : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : Sleeping Car to Trieste : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Sweet Smell of Success : Time Table : T-Men : To the Ends of the Earth : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Vice Squad : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once : Young and Innocent

Buehner’s Office Supply

“A window into a world where analog was king”: Buehner’s Office Supply, in Cleveland, Ohio (via Coudal.) They even have Robinson Reminder refills for sale.

The photographs of Buehner’s remind me of the now-defunct office-supply stores where I found many of the items in my imaginary Museum of Supplies. How come I never took a picture?