A barber used these clippers to cut hair very short. They were made locally by Brown's Clipper Company. Clippers were invented in America where, from the mid nineteenth century, many designs were patented for trimming horses. It is said that in the early 1870s some young Americans used horse clippers to give each other 'pineapple' hair cuts, the forerunner of the 'crew-cut'. A company called Brown and Sharpe took out the first patent for hair clippers in 1879. The blades can be adjusted to cut the hair to different lengths, for example number 0000 cuts hair nearly as close as shaving and number 2 cuts hair ¼ inch in length.