Since 1952, Standardised Staples has invested in research with the patience other companies reserve for pensions. Our Research Department, home to the Intelligent Fastenings Research Team, brings together specialists in metallurgy, adhesives, point geometry and connected fastening, working from a laboratory with a window.
In 1866, an American inventor patented a flexible wire fastener for holding sheets of paper together. By the 1890s, desk staplers fed by a strip of ready-formed staples had arrived in offices, and one of them stood on the desk of a young Edwin Crowne’s grandfather. Edwin later said he spent his childhood “listening to it”.
In 1952, he founded Standardised Staples with a single press, a borrowed shed and the conviction that the staple could be standardised. His traditions live on in everything we do. Every new staple is still tested on a stack of 20 sheets of his preferred paper, and his original press stands in reception, polished every Friday.
After three years of trials, our engineers sharpened the staple point from 30 degrees to 32 degrees, improving first-sheet penetration by 4% and reducing “skating” on glossy paper. Customers did not notice the change, which our engineers considered the highest possible praise.
Named after our founder, the Crowne Gauge is a hand-finished brass block that checks staple crown width to within one thousandth of an inch. It is still in use today, alongside a laser system that agrees with it 97% of the time.
Galvanised for outdoor noticeboards, the Weatherstaple held parish notices in place through the wettest autumn on record. One poster, advertising a jumble sale that year, is still attached.
A new water-based adhesive for staple strips reduced breakage in damp stationery cupboards by 11%, ending what customers had called, in a survey of four people, “the crumbling”.
Our Intelligent Fastenings Research Team unveiled StapleSense, a staple with a tiny light that tells you it has been stapled. Work continues on what to do with this information.