Recently, I had to hunt for some collar stays.  These are the little plastic or metal (or, rarely, cardboard) pieces that are placed inside the points of the collars on men’s shirts. 

I can recall that these things were common when I was a child.  So I went to the local CVS, the Walgreen’s, and my local grocer’s, Stop-N-Shop.  None of the local stores had any collar stays. 

Then I decided to visit a Pink (“Pink” is a fancy brand of men’s shirts) store in Boston.  They did indeed have collar stays: brass ones, silver ones, and a set of 5 plastic ones.  I decided the plastic stays would suit my purposes.  “Certainly, sir,” replied the clerk.  “That will be $25.”

Stunned, I declined to pay $25 for 5 pairs of plastic collar stays, however decorative they might be. 

My wife and son, upon learning of my experience, looked around until they found a pair of collar stays in one of my son’s shirts.  Since I had such difficulty finding them, I decided that I would post a particularly useless piece of information – unless, of course, you need it.  Here is the pattern for a cheap pair of plastic collar stays that came in one of my son’s shirts.  And since I’m such a stickler for details, I have posted this with a good reference: a ruler in centimeters and inches, so that you can see the proper sizes.

 JPG at 300 dots per inch:

JPG at 600 dots per inch: