The Pin-&-Blade counting principle was invented in the 1940s. The basis of Vacuumatic's foundation in the 1950s was to commercialise this technique, which was brought initially to the security markets. Since then, Vacuumatic has led the development of Pin-&-Blade counting and over the years the company has been granted a number of international patents for advancements made. A key element within the Pin-&-Blade counting principal is the use of vacuum for reliable sheet separation and it was indeed from this reliance on vacuum that the company name was derived.

The operating principle of the Pin-&-Blade technique is described in a step-by-step basis in the animation (click on the link above). The mechanism operates on a selected corner of the pile of paper and separates each individual sheet in this region only. This therefore avoids the disturbance to the pile that results from full sheet separation, and it provides a fast, reliable and accurate form of counting. The technique has been perfected over the years to be able to count accurately at speeds of up to 2500 or even 3000 sheets/minute in some applications.

A further important feature offered on some machines is simultaneous batch marking. This is carried out as part of the counting process by inserting paper tabs at pre-determined batch quantities.