Rimco Resources

Thinks I wish I had designed #1, Flexible Straw

Legend has it that Marvin Stone invented the first paper drinking straw while sipping a mint julep after work. Stone, a manufacturer of paper cigarette holders, was drinking with friends, using the traditional natural rye grass straw. Dissatisfied with the way straws would break down and leave a gritty residue in the drink, Stone fashioned his first straw by winding strips of paper around a pencil, removing the pencil, and gluing the strips together. This improved device was test-marketed at a local drinking establishment and enthusiastically received. Stone then refined his design by using paraffin-coated manila paper to prevent the straws from becoming soggy and disintegrating. He patented the product in 1888, and by 1890 his factory was producing more straws than cigarette holders.
A New Bend

Joseph B. Friedman, inventor of the flexible straw. Joseph B. Friedman Papers, NMAH Archives Center
One day in the 1930s, while sitting in his brother’s fountain parlor, the Varsity Sweet Shop, in San Francisco, Joseph B. Friedman (1900-1982) watched his young daughter Judith at the counter struggling to drink a milkshake out of a straight paper straw. Friedman, an inventor with a natural curiosity and a creative instinct, took the straw and inserted a screw. He then wrapped dental floss around the paper into the screw threads, creating corrugations. After he removed the screw, the altered paper straw would bend conveniently over the edge of the glass, allowing a small child to better reach the beverage. U.S. patent number 2,094,268 was issued for this new invention, under the title Drinking Tube, on September 28, 1937. Friedman would later obtain two additional U.S. patents and three foreign ones in the 1950s related to its formation and construction.

over in China last week, meeting with factories and working on customer projects. Then over to Hong Kong for Light Fair...a view from the hotel.