[BP2]

I know the bureaucratic hapits and procedures for many countries and have observed how certain common features of office procedures were bequeathed by the Brits on their former colonies. They did NOT use staples. Staples were still rare and not used in Government offices until well into the 1990s to my personal knowledge, and I suspect still.

I was rather surprised ... staples have been around a LONG time ... and became more common after WWII.

Antique Staplers & Other Paper Fasteners -- the History of Staplers

1870s ~ Individual Preformed Staples: The first desktop machine designed to fasten papers by inserting and clinching metallic staples was patented in 1877 (US. Patent No. 195,603). A number of the earliest machines held only one preformed wire staple at a time and had to be reloaded each time they were used. The photo to the right shows one such machine, a McGill Single-Stroke Staple Press No. 1, which was patented in 1879 and advertised during 1880-1909. To see several single-staple machines, click here.

OldStaplers.com reports that in 1868 and 1874, before the development of machines that both inserted and clinched staples, two patents were issued for machines that inserted, but that did not clinch, staples.

[machogirl]

I have learned more about staples than I could have dreamed of. ;)

[John Valentine]

Americans use staplers, and it is true that they are becoming more and more common around the world in proportion to our influence. But in former Brit colonies, and in one in particular I won’t name, I tried to get my office to switch to staplers in 1991, and failed utterly.

They couldn’t get the expense approved by the bureaucracy. they were told to continue to use straigh pins and to recover and re-use the straight pins from discarded paper.\

Yes. No staples are likely to be found in ANY pre 2000 official document in Kenya.