Celebrity Post-it art goes under the hammer
Post-it Notes are to make the jump from fridge doors to art collections after 20 years.
Sketches, scribbles and scrawls from luminaries such as Frank Skinner, Dame Judi Dench and Stephen Fry are to be auctioned off for charity.
The celebrities handed over drawings on Post-it Notes to mark the 20th anniversary of the gummed yellow paper squares.
The notes will be sold in an Internet auction through QXL.com from 13 December for Barnardo's and the Royal Academy of Arts.
Comedian Skinner penned a self portrait for his effort, while Dame Judi decided on a simple heart.
Other contributors include established artists from the academy, including its president, Phillip King.
The notes will first be previewed at a free exhibition held at the academy's London headquarters, in Piccadilly, for two weeks from 4 December.
Humble beginnings
It is expected that the highest bid for a Post-it Note will go into the Guinness Book of Records.
With bids expected to run into hundreds of pounds for some of the prize lots, it will be a far cry from the Post-it Note's humble beginnings.
The slips were invented in 1980 by Art Fry, a scientist at 3M, who marked his hymnbook at church with little pieces of paper which kept falling out.
He decided he needed a sticky bookmark.
Using low-adhesive glue developed by a colleague 21 years earlier, he found that his new bookmarks stuck but could be removed without damaging the pages.
Pamela Gunter, of 3M, said: "The notes will all be framed and we're hoping for a lot of interest from people looking for a different present to give someone at Christmas or even buy for themselves."
Thanks to Mike Kennedy for finding this article on the BBC Online Website on November 22, 2000 and for the pictures which appeared at the QXL web site.