The Gestetner, named after its inventor David Gestetner, is a duplicating machine brand and company.
David Gestetner, born in Csorna, Hungary, moved to London, England, and in 1881 established the Gestetner Cyclograph Company to produce stencils, styli, ink rollers, etc. He guarded his invention through patents. The Gestetner works opened in 1906 at Tottenham Hale, north London. It employed several thousand people until the 1970s.[1] Gestetner's invention became an international success very quickly, and soon an international chain of branches that sold and serviced the Gestetner products was established.
The Gestetner Company expanded quickly during the start and middle of the 20th century. Management was passed on to David Gestetner's son, Sigmund, and from him to his sons, David and Jonathan. Gestetner acquired other companies during the years: Nashua (later changed to Nashuatec), Rex Rotary, Hanimex and Savin. Eventually a holding company was set up called NRG (N=Nashuatec, R= Rex Rotary, G= Gestetner). In 1996 the international Gestetner Company was acquired by the Ricoh company of Japan. The company was renamed NRG Group, and markets and services Ricoh products under its three main brand names, primarily in Europe, South Africa and the Middle East, but also through dealers throughout the world.
The brand has been owned by Ricoh since 1995. In Europe, Gestetner Group became NRG Group which as of 1 April 2007 became Ricoh Europe.
On 1 April 2007, Ricoh merged its Gestetner dealer network with the Lanier dealer network that had theretofore been selling Lanier-branded products on behalf of Ricoh for the North American market. Ricoh indicated that the merger's rationale was based on the fact that both "Gestetner and Lanier brands have been marketing identical products for many years." Thus, Gestetner's American customers can simply substitute Lanier-branded products for previous Gestetner-branded products even though Lanier-branded products are the same as Ricoh and Savin.[2]
Contents |
The stencil method used a thin sheet of paper coated with wax (originally kite paper was used), which was written upon with a special stylus that left a broken line through the stencil — breaking the paper and removing the wax covering. Ink was forced through the stencil — originally by an ink roller — and it left its impression on a white sheet of paper below. This was repeated again and again until sufficient copies were produced.
Until this time, any "short copy runs" which were needed for the conduct of a business (e.g., for the production of 10–50 copies of contracts, agreements, or letters) had to be copied by hand. (If more were needed, the document would have to go to the printers.) After the run had been copied, business partners had to read each one to ensure that they were all exactly the same, and that human error or tiredness had not introduced an error into one copy. The process was time consuming and frustrating for all. The stencil copy method meant that only one copy had to be read, as all copies were mechanically identical.
During the ensuing years Gestetner further developed his invention, with the stencil eventually being placed on a screen wrapped around a pair of revolving drums, onto which ink was placed. The drums were revolved and ink, spread evenly across the surface of the screen by a pair of cloth-covered rollers, was forced through the cuts made in the stencil and transferred onto a sheet of paper which was fed through the duplicator and pressed by pressure rollers against the lower drum. Each complete rotation of the screen fed and printed one sheet. After the first typewriter was invented, a stencil was created which could be typed on, thus creating copies similar to printed newspapers and books, instead of handwritten material.