Gestetner Realm (1922-1929)

Gestetner is one of the most famous manufacturers of cyclostyles.

In the beginning of 1900s, if you wanted to have a copy of a document, the fastest way was to use a similar device. So this is the ancestor of the modern copiers we have in the office now.

This technology it’s not so old how you can think, cyclostyles were used in the offices till 1970s years.

The Gestetner company was founded in London, in 1881, by an Hungarian man, David Gestetner. He worked at the stock market in Wien, where he had to make copies of the day's activities by repeatedly handwriting the results. Presumably he got tired of this, and started to invent devices to make copies.

His first invention was a pen to reproduce multiple copies of documents.

In 1906 the Gestetner factory was opened in Tottenham Hale near London, and thousands of people were employed there up until the 1970’s.

Gestetner company merged with other office machine companies over time, including Nashua, Rex Rotary, Hanimex and Savin, in the end all came under the holding company name of NRG (Nashua, Rex Rotary and Gestetner).

The Gestetner machine was the first office printing machine. It was easily installed and it made exact copies of the same document quickly. This changed the way offices operated, making information easily available to many more users.

They were used in schools, businesses, churches, and other organisations for the wide distribution of a big variety of information in the form of worksheets, newsletters and more.
It was also portable, it had his casing for transportation.

Here there is a video with this wonderful device.