Preface When I started collecting staplers, I quickly discovered several facts. There was no written history available. There were only a few collectors known. Collecting staplers wasn’t considered a hobby and what information that was available was inaccurate. There were in fact, other machines that were used to fasten papers or documents together. These machines were fasteners and not staplers. At times it was difficult to stay within the boundary of desk top stapler. It was easier to collect fasteners as a whole. Desk top staplers are the most common of fasteners and the desk top fasteners are less common. But, I was also intrigued by hand held staplers and fasteners. What is the difference, you ask? A hand held fastener uses no staples to fasten documents where the hand held stapler does. Both machines are held in the hand while in operation. It was quickly obvious that to really know the history, it would take years of research to uncover the history of the stapler. Who designed the different staplers, who owned the companies, who sold the staplers and who made them. Nearly every photograph that depicted the people and the places staplers were made, which number in the hundreds, were saved. The questions were pursued until an answer was found or until it was determined that, for now, an answer was not available. Of the few stapler companies still around, only Swingline responded to my request. As it turned out, they did have a one page history of the stapler. Their simple act of kindness was greatly responsible for the foundation of the history that I have built over the last 15 years. Many other companies refused to respond. It was my own conclusion that they never maintained their own history because it was not a priority. I discovered this when I wrote to the President of one of the large companies as I was attempting to date a very early example they had produced. Even after providing a copy of the patent and a photograph of the machine. He could not find any reference to this machine. He referred the matter to a
Change language