IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR SORTING AND STAMPING LETTERS, BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, AND OTHER ARTICLES
Year: 1858

page_text: application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Joshua Robinson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
21st January 1858.
I, JOHN JOSHUA ROBINSON, of Fratton, near Portsea, in the County of
Hants, Schoolmaster, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention-for
"IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR SORTING AND STAMPING LETTERS, BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS,
AND OTHER ARTICLES," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in the combination and arrangement of the mechanism
herein-after described, for the purposes of sorting letters, books, newspapers,
and other like articles of various thicknesses, and passing them forward in
continuous streams of uniform or nearly uniform depth, and causing them to
be stamped by means of rotary stamps inserted in a roller, and capable of
being brought into contact during a part of the revolution with the inking
roller or cylinder, and during another part of the revolution with the drum on
which the letters or other articles to be stamped are held.
The mechanism consists of a table with a cage or receptacle for the letters
and other articles. At the two ends of the frame or machine are two drums
for carrying bands at suitable intervals apart, the one drum for passing forward
the letters and other articles, and the other drum for holding them while
being stamped. The former-mentioned drum or the toothed wheel on the
axle of the stamping apparatus sets in motion a roller carrying a number of
projecting pieces or stirrers arranged in rows at equal distances round the.

page_text: circumference thereof, and also at equal distances from each other in the
rows, these projecting pieces or stirrers being suitably padded. The roller in
which they are inserted is mounted on bearings, which admit of its axle being
raised or lowered to suit the varying thicknesses of the articles intended to be
passed under the stirrers by means of the feeding bands in one stream, the
action of the stirrers preventing from passing and throwing back all articles
of greater thickness than the space between their ends and the feeding bands
under the same, and thereby also separating the articles one from over
another.
The stamping apparatus is arranged between the holding drum to which
the articles are carried by the feeding bands and the inking roller or cylinder,
so that the stamps may be successively brought into contact with the latter to
receive the charge of ink or colour, and then with the. article held on the
former drum, in order to stamp the article. The action of the springs is
to stamp articles of different thicknesses at the same time, and the stamps
may be brought into contact with the articles and inking cylinder by fixed
eccentrics or otherwise. There is a second set of elastic bands passing over
another roller and also over the holding drum, which bands are to hold
the articles on the latter drum whilst being stamped, after which these bands
are made suddenly to diverge from the holding drum by passing round another
roller, so that the letters and other articles may drop the instant after they
are stamped.
The sorting apparatus may be dispensed with and the sorting performed by
hand, in which case the articles would have to be fed or supplied to the holding
drum (by means of the feeding bands) by hand, the inking, carrying, and
stamping apparatus alone being required.