Mounted at one end was a trimmer,
Now that is what was confusing me, .... the
trimmer or cutter at one end.
Now I have seen a roll-down shade being trimmed off so that it would fit the window. The retailer would have 1 standard size shde, say 36", and if you needed a new shade that was less than 36" he would "trim" it off ...... just like cutting a piece of water/gas pipe.
But now I have hung
several dozens of rolls of wallpaper in my days ...... and the most tedious part about "paper-hanging" ... is the making sure that both the "edges" of the paper and the "pattern" on the paper ......
line-up exactly.
Thus said, I just can't imagine someone "
trimming off" the edge(s) of rolls of wallpaper ....... and then expecting to "line-up" the pattern when pasting it to the wall.
Now a solid color paper, no problem. But pre-1940, big flowers, etc. and multi-colored paper was the norm for "brightening" up their abodes.
I think brightly colored wallpaper was like "printed" linoleum, "white" paint and the repo-Tiffeny glass (Carnival), .... the poor folks could live like the rich dudes.