5th March: Staplers

On this date in 1868, the stapler was patented in Birmingham, England by C.H. Gould.

1. Before staplers came along, people used any number of methods to keep their papers together, including sewing, glue, clamps, skewers, ribbons and wax. The practice of attaching papers at the top left corner dates back to about 1200 C.E.
2. C.H. Gould wasn't the first person to come up with the stapler idea. In 18th century France, someone invented a type of stapler for Louis XV, which had staples engraved with the royal insignia.
3. It wasn't until the 19th century, though, that increasing uses of Paper created a demand for a simple and efficient fastening. The first one from this era was produced in 1866 by the Novelty Manufacturing Company. Its main drawback was that it could only hold one staple at a time, and all it really did was push the staple through the paper. Users would then have to bend the staple back by hand.
4. The first staple as we know it was patented by American George McGill in 1866. His "press" to insert the staple into paper wasn't patented until the following year.
5. C.H. Gould was the first to patent a stapler in England. Around the same time, Albert Kletzker, another American, also filed a US patent for a stapler.
6. It was 1877 before a machine which would both insert and bend staples came along, invented by Henry R. Heyl, and another two years before George McGill's improvements to his device became the first commercially successful stapler, even though it weighed over two and a half pounds.
7. In 1895, a stapler came out which used a long strip of staples, so the devices didn't have to be re-loaded after every use. This machine was made by the E.H. Hotchkiss Company of Norwalk, Connecticut. The official name for their machine was No. 1 Paper Fastener, but people started referring to it as a ‘Hotchkiss'. Even though the company no longer exists, the word for a stapler in Japanese is still ‘Hochikisu’.
8. The word 'stapler' didn't appear until 1901, in an advertisement in the American Munsey's Magazine. However, by 1913, the word 'stapler' was still not in the dictionary.
9. Very early staplers had to be hit with a mallet in order to bend the staples.
10. The 1919 Remington is the most expensive stapler - $760 on e-Bay.

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