Staples Brand Soft Grip Binder Clips

Staples soft grip binder clips in the package.

One of the most often used and easily recognized office supplies has to be the standard binder clip.  They are right up there with duct tape in terms of the many uses (intended and unintended) that have been found for them, and I dont think there is an office anywhere in the world that doesnt have a box of these or a hand full of them in use somewhere.  For as long as I can remember, binder clips have pretty much been unchanged in how they were made, just two metal handles and a metal clip that was usually black,  although you could find the occasional gold, silver, or other colored version.  These newer versions of the old classic from Staples and Office Depot have a slight twist added to them, which actually makes them a bit better to use.  They have a rubber coated soft grip on each of the handles used to pry the clip open.

Staples soft grip binder clips unpackaged. Pink, red, yellow, blue, and green.

The version shown here in this post are the Small Staples Metallic Soft Grip Binder Clips (1 1/4″ with 5/8″ capacity) size, and Staples has them on their website for $2.99 per dozen, however when I picked them up in person at my local Staples, I only paid $2.49, which comes down to about $.21 per clip.  This is not a huge price difference when compared to the regular all metal binder clips in the same size, which come out to about $.14 each when you buy the pack of 24.  Personally I feel that the approximately $.07 difference in price is worth it considering the benefits you get from this version of the binder clip.

The circle of soft grip binder clips from Staples. Looks a little scary when they are put in this formation.

So the lighting on the circle formation picture is a bit harsh, but I was trying to show the shiny metallic properties of these so you could really get a good feel for it.  Anyway, there are two things I really like about these enhanced soft grip binder clips.  The first thing is the rubber grips on the handles.  I have not used these new binder clips for any major projects as of yet, but I do have bad and painful memories of some previous work where I had to use binder clips to bind presentations, dozens upon dozens of them.  If only I had the rubber coated handles back then, Im sure my fingers would have been in much better shape when I was done.  I get the impression that the smaller the binder clip, the more helpful the rubber coating is too, because those little handles seem to be a little more damaging to the fingers when used in high frequency.    The second helpful feature of these binder clips is the color, which I am sure would be helpful for anyone color coding projects or groups of information…although I know there are already other colored binder clips out there.  If you dont like the colors offered here, but you still like the idea of the cushioned grips, they do also offer the Black Staples® Black Soft Grip Binder Clips for the same price.

In addition to the medium size, Staples also offers a few other size/color combos.  The only real negative I see about these binder clips is that the color seems to scratch off a little bit, however I think it takes a little bit of effort to do so.  It appears that the edges of the clips themselves are the culprit, so I would avoid scratching them against each other.  Otherwise I really like these binder clips, and I will probably try to use these more often than the regular ones.

P.S. – Dont forget to check out the post before this one and enter to win in the office supply giveaway.  The deadline to enter is today, Monday February 16th at 11:59 PM.

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