JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1154

Earlier in this blog I made a post about the Ulysses of zipper repair.  How to Repair a Zipper was one of those great, unknown classics of American technolit that stands the test of time, a great manual on how to approach n-problems with a faulty zipper–if only there were zippers worth repairing.  There are different grades of zippers, just as there are different grades of any other fastening device or automobile or wine.  Of course the zipper seems a ridiculous subject unless the lives of people–say the lives of soldiers–are dependent on their zippers working when the going got tough, 
when soldiers’ jackets really needed to stay closed, tight, protecting them from the rain or cold.  Just ask the soldiers in 


the Napoleonic army when their coats refused to stay closed because the threads that held on their  buttons that held their jackets closed failed, leading to the death of many due to exposure and cold.  Suddenly, fasteners are a big deal.  Just try it the next time you’re out on the frigid trail–unzip your jacket and try to keep the thing closed and you warm.  Its a bad story. 

So the initial reaction to this ad that appeared in Life magazine in 1953 is some laughter to a non-sequitor, but once you gave it a little thought, it can be appreciated just like any other piece of good craftsmanship.  In this ad, the manufacturer of Conmar Zippers (located in the once-mighty, once-leading American city of Newark, in New Jersey) plead with the reader of the full-page ad to pay attention to the zippers on their apparel.  If the zippers fail , they should use the blank form to send to their appropriate retail in complaint, and to replace the zipper with a high-quality, unconditionally guaranteed Conmar zipper, made to never fail. 

This is attention to the small detail that would do us a world of good today. I love the idea of the Conmar Zipper.