Remember those old patens I’ve posted about that revolves around the idea of using magnets to – allegedly – keep your razors sharp? Turns out that the magnet-cranks have not died out yet… I present for your amusement a patent from 2014: Magnetic Blade Sharpener by a couple of German gentlemen.
Being a German patent, the patent text read a bit more poetically than most current US patents. Even so, the crankiness stands out:
Magnetic blade sharpener according to claim 1, characterized in that – the magnetic sharpening of individual magnets which – with or without a frame are made into a magnet block with alternating poles or – which is already configured as a magnet block with individual magnets in adjacent oppositely directed polarity and – with the tray body the filing and re-sharpening device is one-sided integral multipolar or two-sided multi-polar pronounced.
Uuuuhm.. if you place South to North and vice-versa you’ll pretty much cancel out most of the magnetism, in short you’ll end up with a much weaker magnetic field than you would otherwise.
Not that it matters much, since magnets don’t magically sharpens razors anyhow.