Patent GB-657043-A (GB)
Title: Holders or containers for use in the coding and subsequent sorting or classification of cards, envelopes or like articles
IPC: B07C3/00
Filed: 1947-01-01
Abstract: 657,043. Sorting letters. CENTRE D'ETUDES M.B.A., MECANIQUE BALISTIQUE ARMEMENT. Jan. 1, 1947, No. 17. Convention date, Jan. 16, 1946. [Class 78 (i)] In apparatus for use in the coding and subsequent sorting or classification of cards, envelopes or like articles, each article is inserted in a separate holder formed with a plurality of separate or individual code housings, a coding device being accommodated wholly within each housing and adapted to be set and retained in any one of a plurality of alternative settings in a manner which prevents inadvertent displacement of the device. The coding devices are set by apparatus as described in Specifications 644,311 and 657,044, and the subsequent sorting effected by apparatus as described in Specification 657,055. The holder comprises front and back walls 1, 2, thickened end walls 3 covered by a strengthening outer channel 4 and inner channel 5, the lower end being closed by a flexible curved strip 6, riveted to the wall 1, which can be deflected outwardly to discharge any article from the holder. Instead of the riveted strip 6, an integral curved extension of the wall 1 may be utilized or a spring-pressed hinged strip, or a closure member may be used, the contents then being discharged through the open top by turning up the holder. In place of separate channels 4, the front wall 1 may be extended around the end walls 3 and clamped to the rear wall 2. The housings for the coding devices are formed as recesses in the end walls 3, each recess being opposite an opening 12 in the channel 4. For mechanical sorting, hooks or jaws 70 may be provided. As shown in Fig. 8, the coding device comprises a cylindrical plug 14 slidably accommodated in a recess 13, the inner end 15 being tapered and engaging a hole 21 in a resilient tongue 20 cut from or mounted on the channel 5 and the outer end 16 being a flat strip with a deepened portion 17 located at the opening 12 and which engages any one of four pairs of recesses 19 arranged at equidistant intervals on the periphery of a rim 18 inwardly of the opening 12 to give four possible settings of the plug. The holder is coded, by mechanical means such as plungers, by endwise displacement and then rotation of the plug or of more than one plug, the tongue 20 then returning the plug and holding the end 17 in the required recesses 19. The shape of the plug 14 may be modified, for example the flattened portion may be dispensed with, a rib being formed on the head of the plug which may be circular or of polygonal form ; or a groove may be formed on the head, the rim 18 then having pairs of projections or bosses which engage the groove. Fig. 16 shows coding devices having only two settings and each comprising a pair of jaws 29, 28 pivoted at 30, 31 in a recess 27 and embraced by a spring 33 tending to swing the jaws together to a neutral setting in which projections 34, 35 abut. Inside the channel 4 a tongue piece 36 with resilient fingers 37 is secured between each pair of recesses 27, so that when the jaws 28, 29 are pressed apart as by a coding plunger 38, the fingers 37 are pressed outwardly till the ends of the jaws enter apertures 39 in the fingers, the jaws then being held in the alternative setting, in which setting a punch 391 of a sorting mechanism can pass between the jaws 28, 29, a suitable opening being provided in the front of the holder. Sorting may also be effected by the use of a punch inserted between the ends of the jaws 28, 29. For returning any or all of the opened pairs of jaws to neutral setting, a rod 40 extends through the recesses 27 and has resilient arms 41 abutting the tongue pieces 36 which, when the rod is moved downwardly, press out the lower fingers 37 to release the jaws 28, impact of the two jaws releasing the lower jaw from its finger 37. In a further modification, a pair of flexible curved plates can hold a ball between them in two settings, the ball being moved from the neutral setting near the opening 12 by a coding punch and returned, in all recesses, by cams on a displaceable rod. In a further modification a double-armed shutter is used, the arms being at right angles one above the other and pivoted about a rod. The shutter has two settings and is spring pressed to neutral setting and movable by a plunger to alternative setting where it is held by a spring catch releasable, in all recesses together, by a cam on a displaceable rod. In both these modifications, sorting is effected by plungers through the front wall of the holder.