Designer:  Fridolin Polzer (1878 – 1962)

Item: Hotchkiss Juwel Stapler Pliers Model 54

Manufactured by: E. H. Hotchkiss Company

Country of origin: United States

Year made: Ca. 1935

Materials: Chromeplated metal and enamel

Dimensions: 2 ¾” x 5 11/16” x ½”

Condition: Good.  Scratches and some loss of enamel as shown in the photos.  Considering its age, scarcity and everyday use, it’s in very nice shape. 

References: Duncan, Alastair, Modernism; Modernist Design 1880 – 1940, The Norwest Collection, 1998

Description:  Here is a very rare surviving art deco machine age masterpiece of design for a stapler.  The Juwel was patented by Polzer in 1934, U.S. Patent number 1,983,397, but the patent was not assigned to Hotchkiss, and likely the design was sold to other manufacturers.  There were many in this physical form and mechanism produced, but very few survive with this awesome geometric art deco enamel design as introduced by Hotchkiss.  These were also made in three other enamel color combinations; black and white, black and red, and orange and yellow.  The green and black version offered here seems to be the most scarcely found as we have only see two others, one of which is in a museum collection.  Examples can be found in collections of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.