Description
1975 - Jean Ring Key Ring Company Is Born The Jean Ring key ring was invented by Marc Weinstein while designing a metal sculpture at his "Marc Creates" metal sculpture company located in St. Louis, Missouri. In the beginning, the key ring was called the Marc Twist. Buddy Lerman came up with the idea to market it under the name Jean Ring, showing the key ring hanging on the belt loop of a pair of jeans, as the key ring is commonly worn. At that time, Jean Ring World Headquarters was at 1956 North Broadway in St. Louis, Missouri. If you go there today, in front of the building, embedded in the concrete sidewalk is a Jean Ring key ring. Since 1982, Jean Ring World Headquarters has been located at 347 Dinsmoor Drive in Chesterfield, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis). There is a Jean Ring key ring embedded in the sidewalk in front of the Chesterfield location of Jean Ring World Headquarters, as well. How they are made The first Jean Rings key rings were twisted by hand. Hand forged on an anvil, these "original" Jean Rings are true collectors items. The way to identify them is the logo "Marc Creates" will be stamped on one end. Due to the logo stamp, you can only get keys off on one side of the key ring. Also, there is no accompanying tag hanging from the Jean Ring key ring. (The actual originals had no "original" tag.) The "Original Jean Ring" accompanying tag was introduced in the late 1980s. Today, Jean Ring key rings are made in the Midwest on a "fore-slide" machine. Back in the 1970s when we first started mass shipping the Jean Ring key rings to ocean-side areas, they started to turn green because of the salt air. In the beginning, we would polish them down to the bare metal by turning them in two huge cement mixers. (Over one thousand Jean Rings clattering around would drive anyone crazy.) The bare metal exposed to the elements was why they were turning green so quickly. So, we started putting a protective coating of lacquer on the Jean Rings, which has been done since the late 1970s. The Jean Ring key ring comfortably holds 32 keys. If you put more than 32 on it, it voids your warranty. No more than 32 keys. 32 maximum! How they were displayed for sale The Jean Ring key rings were displayed for sale hanging from wooden rods attached to a rough sewn cedar board. The name "Jean Ring" would be branded into the board with a branding iron. We also had an actual belt-loop from a pair of jeans nailed to the board and a Jean Ring key ring hanging from it. This rough cedar board became our trademark. At Jean Ring world headquarters, we used a branding iron heated with a salamander to brand the name "Jean Ring" into the boards. The only problem was the smoke from the burning salamander was coming out of our building and smoking up interstate 270 and disrupting traffic. That's when we started branding the boards at night. But the gas bills were through the roof. So we purchased two electric branding irons from Eveready in Chicago. Good-bye and good-luck, we branded forever. During that time we were making other key rings like: Gravity Hook, Brand X, De-loop, and Butterfly.