While going through my Mom’s old toolbox a few weeks ago, I found this:

Probably from around 1980, it’s the Patrull drawer safety catch from Ikea. The funny thing is that just a couple days before that, I bought this:

Same product, 30 years later!

It’s so interesting to see the two products side by side: the differences in style, packaging, and in the product itself are really telling. For example, notice how the old packaging has a textual description in a few languages, which I guess made sense since Ikea was only active in Europe in the early 80′s. Imagine if the current packaging had a description for every country Ikea operates in now!

The plastic itself has evolved quite a bit too – it’s much thinner now. The current pack contains 5 units, while the old one only has 3 – and in a much smaller package.

Makes me wonder how that product would look 30 years from now.