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Portable Storage Design from the Past: The Rolykit

It's like a canvas tool roll, but in plastic

By Rain Noe - October 21, 2020

In 1973, Dutch filmmaker Samuel Meijering was reportedly "distracted while working on a film script by the clutter on his desk" and started sketching an object to hold errant items. We assume he was inspired by canvas tool rolls. He subsequently created mockups of his design in cardboard, inventing what would come to be called the Rolykit, which was ultimately produced in plastic:

Meijering sold the rights to a Dutch company that went on to sell millions of them. By the 1990s the Rolykit had made its way to the 'States, courtesy of entrenpreneur Joy Mangano and the Home Shopping Network:

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They appear to no longer be in production, but you can still find them on eBay in the $25-$50 range.

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E. Agle

4 years ago

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Yeah great design. -NOT - serious don't buy it. Why not?
If you look carefully you'll notice the closing mechanism isn't very robust/ secure.
And as there is no partial locking system, once open gravity has a ball.

Back in 1986-ish my dad bought one. After an afternoon helping sorting our jars and fill the Rolykit with all kinds of nuts and bolts we closed it. Needless to say it took about 3 uses and one fortunate transport error before everything lay scattered on the floor again. We never sorted it again, but I think he still has it on a top shelve. Jars filled to the brim underneath.

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  E. Agle
  
  4 years ago
  
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  :o my mother had one of those! I'd totally forgotten about it
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Juan Cano

4 years ago

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I really love it, except it takes like 12 ft of linear space to get to everything. But a great design obviously.

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