Fridge magnet history

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 A refrigerator magnet or fridge magnet is an ornament, often whimsical, attached to a small magnet, which is used to post items such as shopping lists, child art or reminders on a refrigerator door, or which simply serves as decoration. [1] [2] [3] Refrigerator magnets come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and may have promotional messages placed on them. Refrigerator magnets are popular souvenir and collectable objects.

Refrigerator souvenir magnet display

Fridge magnet history contents

Contents

1 Manufacture

• 2 Magnetic polarization

• 3 Types

• 4 Collecting

  • 4.1 Large collections

• 5 Home crafts

• 6 References

• 7 External links

Manufacture

retail display of magnets

The first fridge magnets were cylindrical or solid rectangular magnets. Later, a flexible magnet was developed, composed of a high-coercivity ferromagnetic compound (usually ferric oxide) mixed with a plastic binder.[4] This is extruded as a sheet and passes on a conveyor belt over a line of powerful cylindrical permanent magnets. These magnets are arranged in a stack with alternating magnetic poles facing up (N, S, N, S,…) on a freely rotating shaft. This impresses the plastic sheet with the magnetic poles in an alternating line format. No electromagnetism is used to generate the magnets. The pole-pole distance is on the order of 5mm, but varies with manufacturer. Ferrite magnets are commonly used, too, with decorative elements attached to the magnets with adhesive.

Magnetic polarization

Halbach array polarisation

Unlike most conventional magnets that have distinct north and south poles, flat refrigerator (fridge) magnets made from composite materials are often constructed with alternating north and south poles on the same surface of the plane; this can be felt by taking two similar (or identical)fridge magnets and sliding them against each other with the “magnetic” sides facing each other: the fridge magnets will alternately repel and attract as they are moved a few millimeters. This construction gives twice the magnetism on one side and is thus more effective at keeping the large planar magnet uniformly attracted to the steel fridge than a uniformly-polarized magnet would be.[citation needed] This permits cheaper types and sizes of magnets to be used.[citation needed] The arrangement is called a Halbach array.

Types

Alphabetical fridge magnets

Magnetic poetry fridge magnets

Plastic letters attached to small, thick rectangular fridge magnets have been manufactured since the 1960s, and marketed as an educational product for young children. In the 1990s, sets of small sheet magnets printed with individual words became popular; these sets are used to create sentences including poetry. Fridge Magnets may be attached to souvenir objects, or to practical objects such as hooks, notepads, etc.

Collecting fridge magnets

Collecting fridge magnets is a hobby, with some collectors specializing in fridge magnets from their travels, or of a particular theme.[5] They are sold at souvenir shops worldwide.

There is no generally recognized term (e.g. numismatics for currency collecting) for fridge magnet collecting. A Russian collector has proposed the term memomagnetics (Russian: мемомагнетика), derived from the words memoriale (Latin) and magnetis (Greek)[6] A collector of fridge magnets would be called memomagnetist. These terms have been used by at least one Russian online community for fridge magnet collectors.[7]

Large fridge magnet collections

At one time, the largest verified collection of fridge magnets belonged to Louise J. Greenfarb from Henderson, Nevada (suburb of Las Vegas, USA). Her world record was included to the Guinness World Records with 19,300 items as of 1997.[8] According to the British “Book of alternative records”, it grew to 29,000 as of February 2002, and later up to over 30,000 items.[9] Over 7,000 magnets from Greenfarb’s collection were exhibited at the Guinness Museum in Las Vegas, which has since closed.

In January 1999, Tony Lloyd, a teacher in Cardiff, Wales, was interviewed by the Channel 4 Television programme Collector’s Lot when it was ascertained that he had largest collection of fridge magnets in Europe at that time, over 2000.[10] As of September 2010, he had a collection of over 3,600.

Home craft fridge magnets

Refrigerator magnets (Fridge magnets) are also popular as crafts projects.[11]

In 1996 Jeffery Gauss, a.k.a “The Magnet  Dude”, began to create his art on the vinyl magnetic surface itself. Since he began he has created over 41,000 unique pieces of magnetic art. In Minneapolis home of Magnetic Poetry, Gauss began to create and sell his pieces at Calhoun Square in Uptown.

 

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