AN IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR HOLDING LETTERS, BILLS, INVOICES, AND OTHER PAPERS
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 18th June 1878. A communication
from abroad by John Truman Foster, of Arlington, New Jersey, United States
of America, Mechanical Engineer.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co., Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. "AN IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR HOLDING
LETTERS, BILLS, INVOICES, AND OTHER PAPERS." [A communication from abroad
by John Truman Foster, of Arlington, New Jersey, United States of America,
Mechanical Engineer.]
The object of the said Invention is to facilitate the holding or binding together
for temporary use of letters, bill heads, invoices, and other papers.
According to the said Invention I construct needles of tubes of metal and
combine them with a bed or base board, which may be made of wood or metal, as
desired. These needles are pointed at their upper ends to puncture the paper
readily, and have their lower ends so inserted into the said bed or base board as to
pass entirely through it, in order that a thread or binding wire may be passed down
through the tubular needles; and their ends may be held fast by the hand whilst
the papers are being taken from the points of the needles upon the binder thread,
which is then withdrawn from the said needles, their ends being tied together as a
binder of the papers.
I construct hollow caps or thimbles, and combine them with a proper clamping
lever as the means for protecting the points of the needles, and at the same time
forcing the papers down upon them.
I also construct the said paper-clamping lever with lateral projecting shoulders
thereon for limiting the forward, downward, and uptipping back motion of the
clamping lever.
I also construct a bifurcated transferring paper needle, and combine the same
with the said tubular needles, whereby a portion of the papers may be transferred
from the points of the tubular needles when a bill or other paper is required to be
separated from the file without confusing or changing the order of the file of papers
D

page_text: and then transferring the same on the needles again by the simple operation of
inserting the points of the bifurcated needle into the upper ends of the tubular
needles..
The said base or back may be made of wood, paper-board, or metal, as desired.
The needles are made of tube métal, and have their upper ends pointed and their
lower ends inserted through the bed, so as to be open upwards through the lower
ends to permit the insertion of the binding twine through the needles and below
the bed, that its ends may be taken hold of to tighten it when the papers are taken
from the points of the needles.
The said thimbles are secured to the end of the paper-clamping lever; these
thimbles are used for pressing the paper down over the points of the needles, and
protecting their points and preventing the escape of the papers from them.
To keep the thimbles from blunting the points of the needles, notches are cut in
the inner upper edges of the standards of the frame.
Lugs are formed on the outer edges of the clamping lever for engaging the
notches. The said clamping lever has its axes resting in axial standards.
To prevent the uptipping of the clamping lever too far back, lugs are made on
its ends to come in contact with the edges of the standards, and thus keep the
re-acting spiral spring from untipping the front end of the lever too far when bill
heads or other papers are being put on or taken from the needles.
A hole is formed in the rear end of the base for suspending it to the side of a
desk.