The very first stapler is thought to have belonged to King Louis XV of France. The elaborate, handmade staples were imprinted with the royal insignia and were used to fasten together court documents.
In 1868 Charles Gould received a British patent for a wire stitcher that could be used to bind magazines. His invention used uncut wire that was then cut to length, the pointed ends forced through the paper, and the ends folded down. The device was a direct predecessor of the modern stapler.
In the United States, in 1868, Albert Kletzker patented a type of paper clip that used a single large staple to fasten together papers but did not crimp the ends, which had to be done by hand. The first machine that both inserted the staple and crimped it in one motion was patented by Henry R. Heitin 1877.
The first commercially successful stapler was produced by George W. McGill from 1879. Although the staples had to be loaded one at a time, the machine featured an anvil that bent the ends of the staple back on themselves as it was inserted. The fixed anvil can still be seen on modern staplers today.
Improvements to the basic designs were made to enable multiple staples to be loaded at once, either in the form of strips or singly. Eventually, in the 1930s, manufacturers produced strips of staples that were glued together in a "herringbone series," alongside staplers that swung open, allowing easy loading.
Staplers are ubiquitous in offices worldwide, a constant source of frustration to workers when they go missing from desks. Staples have also found a use in surgery as a replacement for sutures.
