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Thumbtack

 
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Thumbtack
 
 
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A thumbtack (known as a pushpin or a drawing-pin in the UK
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
, India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
, Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 and New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
) is a short nail
Nail (engineering)

In engineering, woodworking and construction, a nail is a Pin -shaped, sharp object of hard metal, typically steel, used as a fastener. Nails for specialized purposes may also be made of stainless steel, brass or aluminium....
 or pin
Pin (device)

A pin is a device used for fastening objects or material together. It is usually made of steel, or on occasion copper or brass. It is formed by drawing out a thin wire, sharpening the tip, and adding a head....
 with a large, slightly rounded head made of metal which is used to fasten documents to a background for public display and which can easily be inserted or removed by hand.

most common piecemeal thumbtacks are made by attaching a brass
Brass

Brass is any alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties. In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin....
 stem to a flat brass head.






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Brass Thumbtack
A thumbtack (known as a pushpin or a drawing-pin in the UK
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
, India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
, Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 and New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
) is a short nail
Nail (engineering)

In engineering, woodworking and construction, a nail is a Pin -shaped, sharp object of hard metal, typically steel, used as a fastener. Nails for specialized purposes may also be made of stainless steel, brass or aluminium....
 or pin
Pin (device)

A pin is a device used for fastening objects or material together. It is usually made of steel, or on occasion copper or brass. It is formed by drawing out a thin wire, sharpening the tip, and adding a head....
 with a large, slightly rounded head made of metal which is used to fasten documents to a background for public display and which can easily be inserted or removed by hand.

Types of thumbtack

The most common piecemeal thumbtacks are made by attaching a brass
Brass

Brass is any alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties. In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin....
 stem to a flat brass head. Some have colored plastic
Plastic

Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic chemistry solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products....
 tops, to make them more attractive.

Map pins, or push pins, are also a type of thumbtack. Map pins have a handle-like cover of plastic, which brings the pin out of the wall, allowing quick and easy removal from surfaces. Some other map pins have a round 1 mm head to allow for easy removal. Both types come in a variety of colors. Map pins are safer than flat-headed thumbtacks when dropped on the ground or discarded on a surface, since they will not normally rest with the point upward.

History

The map pin was invented by Edwin Moore around 1900, the year in which he founded the Moore Push-Pin Company .

As far as is currently known, the thumbtack was invented by the clockmaker Johann Kirsten in the year 1903 in the town of Lychen
Lychen

Lychen is a town in the Uckermark district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated 24 km southeast of Neustrelitz, and 12 km east of F?rstenberg/Havel. This is the town where the thumbtack was created....
 in Uckermark
Uckermark

Uckermark is a Kreis in the northeastern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Barnim and Oberhavel, the districts Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Uecker-Randow in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and to the east Poland ....
, Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 . He sold the rights to the invention to Otto Lindstedt, a businessman, who received a patent
Patent

A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a term of patent in exchange for a disclosure of an invention....
 for the thumbtack on 8 January 1904. Lindstedt became a wealthy man while Kirsten, the clockmaker, remained in poverty.

Other sources ascribe the invention of the thumbtack to Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
n factory owner Heinrich Sachs in 1888 .

Physics

A thumbtack can be inserted by hand because of the large area
Area

Area is a quantity expressing the two-dimensional size of a defined part of a surface, typically a region bounded by a closed curve. The term surface area refers to the total area of the exposed surface of a 3-dimensional solid, such as the sum of the areas of the exposed sides of a polyhedron....
 of its head relative to the area of its point. When a relatively low pressure
Pressure

Pressure is the force per unit area applied to an object in a direction surface normal to the surface. Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the local atmospheric or ambient pressure....
 is applied across the large head of a thumbtack, a high pressure will be applied by the tip of the thumbtack. The low pressure on the head means the thumbtack will not pierce a person's finger. The high pressure at the tip allows it to pierce the surface to which the document is being fastened.

The thumb tack has a flat head in order to place the thumb, whereas the drawing pin has a longer head which is gripped between two fingers to place.