The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1880-08-18
How Postal Cards are Made.

manufacture Of postal cards, the New
York Sunday Nears says that the Amerl-
can Prototype company-to whom! the
contract for making the postal cards OF
tho United States was awarded IN 1877
carried on the business in that city tor
two years, but to save the expense and
risk attending the transportation OF
paper from the mill at Holyoke, Mass,
the business was removed thither in the
spring of 1879, a new building being
erected for its accommodation. The
main portion of tie building is
divided by partition through the
middle. One side is used by the con-
tractors for manufacturing cards, and
the other side by the special agent of the
postoffice and his subordinates, in the
transaction of the government business
pertaining to making up of orders and
forwarding cards to the various post
offices ordering them. No business Of
whatever nature is transacted with
more systematic precision than is main.
tanned in both departments of the postal
card agency.
On entering the contractors side, the
irst thing noticed are the large piles Of
paper, which are delivered to the con-
tractors by the Parsons Paper company
n loads of 5000 sheets each. The works
consume on the average about three
tons daily at present. The process OF
manufacturing cards is neither lengthy
nor complicated, butts at once so novel
and interesting that brief description
is worth recital. The sheets are about
thirty by twenty-five inches in size. and
are Just fitted by the plates from which
the cards are printed, each plate cover
ing forty cards, four in width and ten
in length. The printing is done on two
Hoe superroyal presses, by skilltul
pressmen, and as each sheet passes into
the press the number of cards is une--
ringly recorded by registers attached to
the presses and which are carefully
locked every night toprevent tamperlnge
The sheets are then piled up and allowed
to dry in order that they may not be
damaged by future handling. Incident
to the rapidity with which the work is
performed, now and then a sheet is mis-
printed, but this occurs only rarely, the
number of cards being spoiled in this
way being not over one-tenth of one
per cent. or one in thousand on the
average.
After drying thoroughly the sheets
are then passed through the rotary
sitter, q machine fitted with circular
knives, which cuts them into strips of
ten cards each. and trims the edge of
the outside strip. These strips are then
passed transversely through the rotary
is similar to the slitters." The cross
cuts divide the strips into the single
cards, which drop into a rotary hopper
containing ten compartments. AS soon
rs each compartment has received
twenty-five cards the hopper revolves
and throws the cards out upon a table.
A number of girls then take them, and
after throwing aside all damaged cards,
bind the perfect ones into packs OF
twenty-five each. Other girls then take
the packs, and, recounting them, put
them in pasteboard boxes containing
twenty packs or 500 cards each. The
boxes are made en-: irely of one piece of
pasteboard, without seam or paste, and
after being filled are all weighed. Each
box is supposed to weigh three pounds
and two ounces. In the rear Of the
building is q large lireproof vault, with
q capacity for storing 25,0OO,00O cards.
BY the stipulation of the CONTRACT the
American Prototype company is re-
quired to keep at least l0, 1000, 0G0 in store
al the time.
So rapidly has tie popular demand
for postal cards increased that the works
have lately been run night and day, EN-.
ploying in all nearly fifty hands. and
producing nearly a million OF cards a
day on the average. The government
portion Of the works is no less interest
ing than the other. Here the business
is carried on in a manner siMilar to that
in the general postofices in large cities.
Every postofhce IN the country requir-
ing postal cards sends its order, TO-
gether with requisition for other sup
plies, to the Office of the third assistant
postmaster-general ut Washington.
There the orders are separated, and all
the orders for postal cards are made up
in one general order to the agency at
HolyoA. :, the names of ordering post
Offices being put down alphabetically.
An order is sent every day, and often in
cludes the orders Of several hundred
postoffices, and requiring all the way
from a few thousand to two, three and
even four million cards to fill it. Dur
ing the first month in each quarter the
orders average much larger than at
other tim"s, for, as rule, a large num-
ber Of offices order supplies in those
months to last for the quarter. AS an
example of this there were ordered dur
ing the months of January last 36.486,-
500 domestic cards, while 1852, 900
filled the orders for February.
A large portion of all the cards made
are used in the Eastern and Middle
States. New York cityIalone uses about
ter per cent. of the entire production.
Chicago stands next to New York, using
more cards than Boston. The Southern
States take but few cards
The total number of cards issned dur
ing the fiscal year ending June 30, 1879
was 22l ,607 900. The department esti-
mate for the year ending June 30,
1880, was 25O,5l4, 100. on increase of
eventeen per cent. over the previous,
years issue; but if the number issued
for the first eight n onths of the year
should be continued proportionally till
the close, the years consumption would
amount to 275, ,e39, $50. If a like increase
were to be presumed from year to year
before 1890 the yearly issue of postal
cards would exceed q thousand millions.
Congress passed an act March 3, 1879.
providing for the issue of international
cards at postal charge of two cents
each. 1t was not, however, until
December ] that the first were issued.
The demand for them has not been as
large rs was anticipated. Up to March
l., this year, three months from the
frat icc1la or,lu 9 5O0 nnQ have hppn