All of a Sunday Morning, I was a-searching about on the Internet for stainless steel staples. What did I find? I found Found the Early Office Museum . Monel staples are used in the archival departments of museums and libraries.
Found a good discussion of archival document fastening at the U. S. National Archives. Another page listed supplies. Very good stuff.
Stainless paper clips are de rigeur.
A search led me to an old friend, I will not link to here---Light Impressions---for Archival treatment of photos. That's an expensive process. My family threw away several boxes including negatives that I had stored in special archival materials, that had never been printed of my first trip to Majuro and Kiribati. In particular, my first experiments in black and white in-water photography.
Another page on the Office Museum site covers early Staplers, Paper Fasteners, Paper Clips. I am interested in the "paper welder." I have actually seen a broken one on Saipan, and I saw one once in Santa Barbara at an office supply, in Goleta. But I can't find on on ebay! They are just off the map on the Inet. Except at the Office Museum, where pictures can be found. There do exist paperless staplers that punch holes and loop and piece through to bind paper. Perhaps just as good? And cheap. Here's one on Think Geek.
Monel Staples on Gaylord Supplies (library, archive, furniture, etc.) were about US$30-40.00 a box. One site was a bit cheaper. Interestingly, the mainstream staple producers produce monel staples only for staple guns and large, heavy duty staplers. Same for stainless. That's a pricey little corner of the universe to shop in. Anti-Entropy doesn't come cheap.
Thomas is the place to find manufacturers.
