Paper Hole Punch - 100 years and still going strong!

The humble hole punch or perforating machine as it was originally called, hasn't changed that much in over 100 years. Well not in terms of the basic mechanical design that is.

Current models look something like this:

As you can see the original patent awarded to  J.C. Parker and C. T. Keet in 1918, the hole punch works in basically the same way as it does now.

John Parker of Philadelphia USA was the original person behind the Lefax brand. He sold subscriptions for engineering and other collections of inserts from 1910 onwards. I have some of these from the 1920's and 1950's.

Norman and Hill Ltd, a firm of London Printers started to import Lefax binders and inserts in 1921. By 1930 Grace Scurr, the secretary at Norman and Hill had come up with the name 'Filofax' standing for 'File of Facts'.

Lefax continued to trade as separate company until Filofax bought the company in 1992.

The scans are reproduced here for educational and research purposes only.

You will find some higher resolution scans of these pages here.

Thank you to Alan for originally supplying a copy of the patent file.