††The earliest needles on record were produced by the Magdalenian tool industry, which began around 15,000 BC. Common materials used were bone or antler. We know that pins were in existence as far back as 3000 BC, when the Sumerians made them from bone or iron to hold clothes together. Egyptian pins date from around 2000 BC, and were made of materials like fishbones, thorns or copper. The first pins to be properly manufactured came from a British factory which was set up by John Tilsby in 1625. Lemuel Wright patented a pin-making machine in the United States in 1824, but it was not until the 1840s that a machine made by John Howe could make pins cheaper than they could be made by hand.
