Gestetner

Gestetner was a company that made special machines called duplicators. These machines were kind of like photocopiers but they worked differently.

With a photocopier, you put a piece of paper into the machine and it makes a copy of the same thing on another piece of paper. But with a Gestetner machine, you first had to make a special stencil of what you wanted to copy.

A stencil is like a really thin sheet of paper with tiny holes in it. You would use a pen or a typewriter to put ink onto the stencil, through the holes, to create the words or pictures you wanted to copy. Then you would put the stencil onto the Gestetner machine and it would use special ink to transfer the image onto a new piece of paper.

This was a great way to make lots of copies of things like newsletters or flyers before photocopiers became popular. But it was also more difficult and time-consuming because you had to create the stencil first, and it was often messy because the ink could get everywhere.

Today, we have super advanced and easy-to-use machines that can make copies and print things quickly and easily without stencils or messes.