Paper Cutter Love

Adam: (my husband, looking around the church office) Hey, where’s the paper cutter? Did someone get rid of it? I can’t find it anywhere.

Heidi: They better not have. That paper cutter is part of my soul!

Maybe I was exaggerating a little. But not really.

I’ve written posts about manhole covers and our local No Swimming signs, and here I’m going to talk to you about paper cutters. I love that all mundane objects have some kind of history and backstory to them.

The paper cutter in the church office when I arrived was awful: mostly plastic with a wimpy blade. When one of our church members was cleaning out her parents’ house, she found and donated this one. Her dad was a Lutheran pastor and served in a series of small churches in Wisconsin. Her mom was often drafted to be the church secretary. This paper cutter lived in the offices of those country churches. When her dad became chaplain at a state mental hospital in Indiana, it was in his office there. Finally, he brought it home when he retired. She says, “It is one of those things that has always been on one of the shelves of my childhood.” I’m grateful she donated it to St. Benedict.

The blade is heavy and cuts like a dream. It’s a real tank!

Compared to what our copier’s been doing lately, this vintage office machine wins my prize for Most Reliable Office Technology. It was intended for cutting photo paper, but it does fine for general office paper and cardstock.

I looked up “Premier Brand Photo Materials Co.” and found a catalog online from 1903! But they’ve since gone out of business.

I also looked up the patent number and found the application (below) and the applicant’s name: Adolph I. Blanc. Then, you find traces of a story: Blanc was born in 1888 and immigrated to the U.S. from Russia, probably in the 1910s. He got married, had three sons, and started an office machine business in 1940, which he named after two of them, who ran it with him: Martin Yale Business Machines. It’s still in existence, although it’s moved from Chicago to Wabash, Indiana. Blanc died in 1968 and Yale Blanc died just last year. May they rest in peace.

Here’s a page from Adolph’s patent application for our paper cutter:

They’re for sale all over eBay, and probably at rummage sales. Pick one up if you can – they don’t make them like this anymore.

Or, for that matter, like they did 200 years ago. Paper cutters seem to have been first developed in Germany in the 1830s. They were for book binders and newspapers and quite substantial:

Industrial paper cutters are kind of scary. Huge machines with weighted blades that come crashing down and slice through thicknesses of paper and cardboard. Paper cutters have been and are often still are called “paper guillotines.”

But this doesn’t look too intimidating:

A paper cutter like ours, with a blade that pivots down like a cheese cutter, isn’t built like a guillotine and seems to be called a “shear cutter,” although you’ll find both terms used, or just “paper cutter.”

A giant shear cutter from a book binder – watch those fingers!

If you’re in the market for some serious paper cutting you can buy your very own giant paper cutter. (This one was for sale back in 2009.) It’s quite beautiful:

FOR SALE: 46” John Jacques board shear with metal top, spring gauge and back gauge. I bought this shear several years ago and had it squared and the blade sharpened by Bindery Tools and Equipment in PA. I have used the shear only twice since then. There is a bit of tarnish on the back gauge, which should clean up with some steel wool. The counter gauge is a bold red color that is striking against the gray metal. There is a lovely surface patina. This is a magnificent looking press. Selling for $4,900. 

Sometimes, it’s the little things that make your day. Like a good paper cutter.