Introducing the Ben's Bolt Mini Zip Bag
Our new Ben’s Bolt bag and the red bag that helped inspire it.
Our new Ben’s Bolt bag and the red bag that helped inspire it.
I’ve had the red zippered money bag since I was a kid. It was a Christmas gift to newspaper carriers (remember when they were kids?) from the Lewiston Sun-Journal in Maine.
Four of the five kids in our family delivered the morning Daily Sun and/or the Evening Journal. That bag is the only tangible link I have to those five years of six-day-a-week delivery. The white screen-printed images of a paperboy and a papergirl, and the slogan, “We’ve got news for you,” have cracked and the zipper can be a struggle, but I still use the bag.
I love bags, big and small. Tote bags, backpacks, messenger bags. America has squandered lots of its manufacturing prowess, but we still make lots of great bags. We’ve offered our Maine-made cordura nylon Stay Zippered Bag since we debuted in 2017 and our Texas-made Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Canvas Bag since last year.
The Massachusetts company that made my old red bag apparently closed 30 years ago, but A. Rifkin Co. in Wilkes-Barre, in northeast Pennsylvania, is still going strong. Rifkin, which dates to 1892 and got its start making overalls, offers a range of security and other bags for the banking industry.
Superhero logo
I asked Rifkin to make a mini leatherette zippered bag bearing our Ben’s Bolt design, which also is available on a tee. The design is named for Ben Franklin, who not only was a newspaper publisher but also a philosopher and humorist who said, “Waste neither time nor money.”
The Ben’s Bolt bag, measuring 3.5 x 4 inches, is so convenient that you won’t squander a second. The Ben’s Bolt design reminds me of a superhero’s logo, and I hope will appeal to people young and old.
The bag securely holds cash or coins, credit cards, driver’s license, keys. It also will accommodate hand sanitizer, a spare mask, keys, business cards, loyalty cards, a book of stamps, earphones. For kids, this bag is the perfect way to carry crayons and other treasures of youth.
It fits comfortably in a front or back pants pocket or can be slipped into a bigger bag depending on the use.
The bag sells for $8. We’ll have it at all of our pop-up markets or we can ship for free via stayapparel.com.
And if you live near Hershey, I can even summon my paperboy past and deliver to your door.