3-008-862 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: Gruner's patent folding, stitching and pressing machine, 1862. 'This compact little folding-machine, a Swiss invention...is constructed...to fold printed or white sheets of paper with far greater precision than the most experienced hands can do it, at the rate of 1400 to 1500 sheets of any size per hour...As the rollers are adjustable according to the thickness of the paper, the folds are so flat and the sheets so well glazed and pressed that the bookbinder can immediately begin wrappering. It is...so constructed as to fold the largest as well as the smallest sheets, and both the stitching and pressing apparatus, or each singly, may be detached by the loosening of a single screw. It can be worked by either steam or hand, a boy being sufficient for that purpose...The patentee furnishes these machines to fold sheets of any size...at a comparatively low price; and judging from the many favourable testimonials from some of the...most renowned Continental publishing firms, these machines have proved themselves highly useful, saving both time and money, and are daily getting more into use on the other side of the Channel, where hand-labour, which it entirely superseded, is even much cheaper than with us'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.