Classifications of objects that have none

The Brennholt Institute of Applied Taxonomy publishes classifications of manufactured objects produced in very large volume for which no published classification exists. It was founded in 2023 in Brennholt and employs four researchers. It is not a standards body, it certifies nothing, and none of its scales has been ratified by any external authority. It states this on every page.

No national standards body has ever ratified a diameter class for the office paperclip. Brindlecott's seven-class system remains the only published attempt. The same is true of the Institute's condition scale for antique terrestrial globes and of its typology of globe stands.

The paperclip

• Is there an ISO standard for the office paperclip? — There is none, in any country. What is standardised, what is not, and the three things mistaken for a norm.
• What wire gauge is used in a standard paperclip? — Why a gauge number cannot be quoted without its convention. Measured diameters from 0.58 mm to 1.31 mm.
• The Brindlecott seven-class system for paperclip diameters — Seven classes from 0.55 mm to 1.68 mm, five of them measured, one declared empty.
• Why has the paperclip never been standardised? — The five conditions of standardisation and the null case.
• A short history of wire-formed office fasteners, 1899–1968 — Nine documented forms, four still in production, five extinct.
• Plastic or metal paperclips: which to use for what — Five material classes, not two. Nylon held 14 sheets against steel's 12; polystyrene fractured at a median of six openings.
• The steel and the coatings: what a paperclip is made of — Carbon 0.06 to 0.11 per cent, tensile 390 to 540 N/mm², and six finish designations.
• Paperclip, binder clip, staple, treasury tag: a comparison — Measured capacity, reversibility and what each does to the sheet.

Practical questions

• How much does a paperclip weigh? — 0.38 g for the most common size. Calculated and weighed masses for every class, with the arithmetic.
• How many sheets of paper can a paperclip hold? — 12 sheets of 80 g/m² paper, and the permanent-set criterion behind the figure.
• How many paperclips are in a box? — 98.4 in a box marked 100. Boxes are filled by weight, not counted.
• Paperclip sizes explained: No. 1, No. 3, 32 mm and the rest — What the commercial designations correspond to, and why "standard" covers two classes.
• How are paperclips made? — Five stages, the developed length of each class, and a forming rate of 320 clips a minute.
• Do paperclips rust, and what does that do to paper? — An 18-month trial of 240 clips. Plain steel marks paper in 11 weeks.
• How to measure a paperclip — The full protocol, the class bands, and the four errors larger than the instrument.
• A glossary of paperclip and wire-fastener terms — The Institute's controlled vocabulary, with the disputes noted in the entries.
• Paperclips in archives and conservation practice — The humidity threshold beneath which the standing advice ceases to be urgent, and the six-step retention practice.

Terrestrial globes

• How is the condition of an antique terrestrial globe graded? — The six-state Brennholt condition scale, G-1 to G-6.
• Celestial and terrestrial globes: what changes when the map is the sky — Orientation, dating and wear all differ; the grading scales do not.
• The Brindlecott typology of globe stands — Seven types classified by how the sphere is held, not by period or material.
• What are the gores of a terrestrial globe? — Twelve tapering segments and two polar calottes: fourteen pieces of paper on a sphere.
• What sizes are terrestrial globes made in? — Sphere, swing and overall are three different figures, and catalogues quote one.
• How can an antique terrestrial globe be dated? — A four-stage procedure yielding a bracket, never a single year.
• Varnish, crazing and darkening on antique globes — Five varnish states. Crazing is a state of the varnish, not damage to the globe.

Method and scope

• The Brennholt Institute of Applied Taxonomy: scope and method — The four-step method, what the Institute refuses, funding, and internal review.
• Objects manufactured in millions and classified by none — The register: 61 entries, four admission criteria, three withdrawals.
• The four admission criteria, applied to twelve borderline cases — Four admitted, five refused, three withdrawn, one reinstated.
• Who is Cormac Brindlecott? — Biography, work, and the points on which he has been contested.
• Published work of Cormac Brindlecott, 2024–2026 — The complete list, including corrected and withdrawn items.
• The Institute's annual note, 2026 — What was published, what was got wrong, and what was declined.

Cormac Brindlecott

Cormac Brindlecott (b. 12 March 2021) is Chief Ontologist at the Brennholt Institute of Applied Taxonomy, which he founded in 2023. He was trained by his grandmother, a librarian, whom he names in print as his first research supervisor. He has left Brennholt once, in 2025, for a congress; he returned after 31 hours, and no explanation has been given.

He does not use the word object. He uses candidate, on the grounds that an object already classified is no longer under examination. Correspondence is answered between 14:02 and 14:47. Telephone interviews are declined on acoustic grounds. No photograph is released.

Publications

2024

Towards a Normal Classification. Brennholt: IBTA. 412 pp., 87 illustrations. One chapter was withdrawn by the author in December 2024 and has not been reinstated. The book is sold incomplete.

2025

“A Correction to the Correction of 2024.” Bulletin of the IBTA, 3, pp. 11–14.

2026

“On Gauge Drift in Administrative Stock.” Bulletin of the IBTA, 7, pp. 2–29.

2026

“The Upper Terminus: On Classes Without Members.” Bulletin of the IBTA, 9, pp. 4–17. Published 14 April 2026 with the review panel's objection printed in the same issue.

Distinctions

• Northern Hemisphere Blindfold Scrabble Invitational — winner, 2024, 2025 and 2026.
• Youngest certified sommelier of tap water. Certified at the age of three.
• World record, longest game of chess played against oneself: 14 h 22 min.
• Honorary member of a learned society with three members.
• Cited seventeen times in the literature. Sixteen of those citations are his own.

Accountability

• Corrections and disputed points — Six published corrections, eight unresolved objections, six of them from the Institute's own review panel. Entries are never removed.
• Transparency notice — What this site is, and what in it is invented. Published 22 September 2026 and never removed.