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Do you have a forgotten stash of crisp, blank notebooks and rarely feel guilty about it?

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Congratulations! You’re a stationery lover and our kind of people. Our histories, memories, dreams and stories are connected with stationery, and stationery has its own stories too.

Did you know graphite used to be smuggled to make pencils in the early days?

An expensive pigment called Mummy Brown was made from real Egyptian mummies!

Stationery is the quiet family member you think is nothing special, but actually has magical and mysterious tales to tell if you could only get them to talk. There are stories of elegant engineering and over-the-top marketing, incidents of serendipity and corporate wars. Stationery objects have survived wars and destruction, historical events and new technologies. Stationery has been the constant through the ages and the ever new kid on the block.

These often-overlooked objects are brimming with fascinating tales of craftsmanship, design, function and origin. And, Inky Memo is here to share them! Subscribe to our newsletter for your monthly dose of stationery stories, videos and useful links.

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It seems the culture that invented rubber also used it in a gory ballgame where you could either be killed by the heavy rubber ball or by being on the losing team.

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Did you know that before making the kid-safe and colourful Crayola brand of crayons, the company produced the black pigment for car tyres?

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In the ancient world a rivalry between libraries instigated a trade blockade which led to the invention of a new writing medium.

If you love quick stories of history, science and how things came to be, sign up for our stationery-loving newsletter. We promise to keep you wide-eyed, bushy-tailed, and bring you all the stationery wonders you never knew you’re missing in your inbox.

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