Skotch Will Help

I have a place in my shop where I keep old boxes of hardware, mainly because I like the boxes. Today I needed to connect two pieces of wood lengthwise in neither a structural nor aesthetically pleasing way so I reached for these Skotch Wood Joiners. They worked perfectly. I have used them in the past and have been very judicious in my use of them, because there are so few left in the box.

Looking to see if I could bolster my supply of these vintage fasteners, I naturally turned to the internet. Low and behold, they're still being manufactured in the USA, by the same company that has been making them since 1928. I also found a bit of Skotch Wood Joiners lore.

According to an anonymous company source "the word skotch was chosen to denote thrift as you could repair many things with this item. The 3M Company wanted to call its new adhesive tape product skotch but it conflicted with our trademark so they settled for "scotch."

Well I did a little sleuthing and found that the word scotch is an adjective that denotes thrift and "Scotch" tape was invented in 1930, so maybe there is something to the story. I think I'll muse on it over a nice single malt.