I thought that they looked handy, so rather than throw them out I kept them.
They were not handy. They worked by punching a hole through the to-be-bound sheets of paper with the spiky part, which then clicked into place with a hole at the back. There were two problems with this.
Firstly, the spiky part was only long enough to clip together about four sheets of paper before it stopped reaching its hole.
Secondly, the paper that was clipped together had a hole in it.
Paperclips and staplers were both much better, so I didn't use these "paple clips" at all. I kept them in my desk in my office at the university, and when I emptied it last week I finally threw them out.
I don't know why they were called "paple clips"; maybe if they'd been "papal clips" they might have been worth something.