IMPROVEMENTS IN ALBUMS OR BOOKS FOR HOLDING PHOTOGRAPHS, EN. GRAVINGS, AND OTHER REPRESENTATIONS, AND IN BINDING TOGETHER SHEETS OR PIECES OF PASTEBOARD OR SUCH LIKE STIFF MATERIALS, ESPECIALLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF FORMING SUCH ALBUMS OR BOOKS
Year: 1861

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Ludwig Pohl, of the Firm of Edward Posen and
'Company, of Offenbach, in Germany, Manufacturers, for the Invention
of "IMPROVEMENTS IN ALBUMS OR BOOKS FOR HOLDING PHOTOGRAPHS, EN.
GRAVINGS, AND OTHER REPRESENTATIONS, AND IN BINDING TOGETHER SHEETS OR
PIECES OF PASTEBOARD OR SUCH LIKE STIFF MATERIALS, ESPECIALLY FOR THE
PURPOSE OF FORMING SUCH ALBUMS OR BOOKS."-A communication from
abroad by Paul Luz, of Offenbach, in Germany.
Sealed the 22nd August 1861, and dated the 23rd February 1861.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Ludwig Pohl at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 23rd February
1861.
حلام
I, LUDWIG POHL, of the Firm of Edward Posen and Company, of Offenbach,
in Germany, Manufacturers, do hereby declare the nature of the said Inven-
tion for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ALBUMS OR BOOKS FOR HOLDING PHOTOGRAPHS, EN.
GRAVINGS, AND OTHER REPRESENTATIONS, AND IN BINDING TOGETHER SHEETS OR
PIECES OF PASTEBOARD OR SUCH LIKE STIFF MATERIALS, ESPECIALLY FOR THE PURPOSE
OF FORMING SUCH ALBUMS OR BOOKS," communicated to me from abroad by Paul
Luz, of Offenbach, in Germany, to be as follows:-
My Invention chiefly relates to a description of album or book, in which
photographs, engravings, or representations are held in sheets or pages without
raised or projecting parts on their surfaces, so that when the book is closed
they lie flat or close over one another like the pages of an ordinary book. And
[Price 8d.]

page_text: my first improvement has for object to facilitate the sliding out of such
photographs, engravings, or representations. For this object at the under
edge of the slit or opening contrived for the purpose, and on the inner side, I
attach a strip or piece of paper or equivalent material with another strip over the
junction in such manner that this arrangement destroys the obstructive effect
of the edge, the strip first named merging as it were into the same plane with
the cardboard or material of the sheet to which it is attached, and acting as if
it were a continuous surface with it, so that the picture or such like article
may slide smoothly over it when being drawn through. When there are
pictures or the like on both sides of the sheet, this arrangement also serves to
keep them separate.
To bind together sheets or pieces of pasteboard or other such like material
of a thick or stiff character or incapable of being folded for purposes of binding,
I adopt the following mode, which is especially applicable for albums for
holding photographs and other pictures:-Iattach the thick sheets to be bound
to folded strips or pieces of leather, cloth, or similar flexible material, each
strip connecting one side of one sheet with the adjoining side of the next.
I bind or connect together a required number of folds of paper or equivalent
material; I attach the back of the leather or other flexible connecting strips
to and between the sets of paper (or equivalent) folds. The order of the
operations may be varied.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Ludwig Pohl in the Great Seal Patent Office, on the
23rd August 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, LUDWIG
POHL, of the Firm of Edward Posen and Company, of Offenbach, in Germany,
Manufacturers, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-third day of February, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, in the twenty-fourth year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Ludwig Pohl, Her special licence that I, the said Ludwig Pohl, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Ludwig
Pohl, my executors, administrators, and assigns should at any time agree with,
and no others, from time to time, and at all times thereafter during the term
therein expressed,. should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,

page_text: within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ALBUMS OR BOOKS
FOR HOLDING PHOTOGRAPHS, ENGRAVINGS, AND OTHER REPRESENTATIONS, AND IN
BINDING TOGETHER SHEETS OR PIECES OF PASTEBOARD, OR SUCH LIKE STIFF
MATERIALS, ESPECIALLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF FORMING SUCH ALBUMS OR BOOKS,"
communicated to me from abroad by Paul Luz, of Offenbach, in Germany,
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Ludwig Pohl, my
executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their,
or one of their hands'and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be per-
formed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent office within
six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters
Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Ludwig Pohl, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement,
reference being had to the accompanying Drawings, and to the letters and
figures marked thereon, that is to say:-
.!.
This Invention chiefly relates to a description of album or book in which
the photographs, engravings, or representations, are held in sheets or pages
that have no raised or projecting parts on their surfaces, so that when the
book is closed the pages lie flat or close over one another like the pages of an
ordinary book. And my first improvement has for its object to facilitate the
sliding out of the photographs, engravings, or representations. For this
object at the under edge of the slit or opening contrived for the purpose, and
on the inner side, I attach a strip or piece of paper or equivalent material by
another strip placed over their junction, (that is, the part where they touch,)
in such manner that this arrangement destroys the obstructive effect of the
edge, the strip first named merging as it were into the same plane with the
cardboard or material of the sheet to which it is attached, and acting as if it
were a continuous surface with it, so that the picture or such like article may
slide smoothly over it when being drawn through. When there are pictures
or the like on both sides of the sheet, this arrangement also serves to keep
them separate.
To bind together sheets or pieces of pasteboard or other such like material
of a stiff or thick character, or incapable of being folded for purposes of
binding, I adopt the following mode, which is especially applicable for albums
for holding photographs and other pictures :-I attach the thick sheets to be
bound to folded strips or pieces of leather, cloth, or similar flexible material,

page_text: which I call connecting strips, each strip connecting one side of one sheet with
the adjoining side of the next; I bind or connect together a required number
of folds of paper or equivalent material; I attach the back of the leather or
other flexible connecting strips toand between thesets of paper (or equivalent)
folds. The order of the operations may be varied.
I now proceed to describe in what manner the Invention may best be
carried into effect, with reference to the accompanying Drawings. Figs.
2, 5, 5, 6, and 9 are on a larger scale than Figs. 1, 3, 4, 7, and 8.
Figure 1 is a plan of an album having these improvements applied and
shewn as lying open. The thick or stiff sheets or leaves composing the book
are intended to hold photographs on both sides, and are here shewn as com-
pound, that is to say, each sheet or leaf consists of three sheets or thicknesses
of material a, b, c, gummed or attached together to form a leaf, as shewn in
the transverse section. Figure 2 (enlarged section on line Q, R, of Fig. 1). I
may here mention that forming albums with such stiff or compound leaves
and cutting spaces d therein are known methods, and do not form part of this
Invention.
Figure 3 is a plan of the back or inner surface of one of the outer portions a
detached from the others b, c ; e is a slit or opening cut in the piece a, through
which the photograph is inserted and withdrawn, being held in place under
the edges of the opening d in the sheet as usual; fis a strip of paper attached
at the under edge of the opening e at the back or inside of the piece a, by
means of a thin paper strip g, for which purpose I take the sheet a before it is
attached to and lay it on its front surface, and I then pass a card or other
like convenient agent through the opening e under the portion of a below that
opening in such manner as temporarily to raise such portion slightly above the
level of the portion above the opening; I then take the strip f and apply its
lower edge against and in contact with the lower edge of the opening e,
thereby bringing the strip and the raised part of a flush or in one plane, and
having thus brought these parts edge against edge, I fix them together by
gumming or otherwise, attaching to them the thin paper strip g,which I attach
partly over the back surface off, and partly over the back surface of a, so that
it lies over the part where those surfaces touch, and holds them together; the
card is then withdrawn to allow the part of a below the opening to return to
its previous position, the strip flying behind the opening, as shewn in the
fragmentary plan Figure 4, in which a portion of the surface a is removed to
exhibit this arrangement clearly. There are arrangements e, f, g, in the
piece c similar to those in a. By means of this arrangement of e, f, and 9, it
results that when a photograph is drawn out through the opening e, it does

page_text: not meet with any resistance or impediment from the under edge of that
opening, because the strip f is in contact therewith, and being merged, so to
speak, into the same plane with the outer surface of the page a below the
opening e acts as if it were a continuous surface for the back of the photo-
graph to slide over smoothly. The space d cut away from the portion b
generally extending down to the opening e, the arrangements f, g, keep the
pictures in the surfaces a and c separate.
In carrying out that part of the Invention relating to binding I prefer to
proceed as follows:-I take strips i, i, Figures 1 and 5, of leather, cambric,
silk, or other similar flexible material (sometimes preferring when I use
leather to line it with calico), and I fold each strip longitudinally down the
middle, as shewn by the line j; I call these strips i the connecting strips.
I then take a number of paper strips k also folded longitudinally down the
middle; these strips k are narrower than the strips i.. I arrange these strips
k, k, into as many clusters as I have compound leaves or sheets (a, b, c,) to
bind, each such cluster consisting of a number of strips / placed one inside the
k
other bookwise, the number of strips in each cluster being sufficient to corre-
spond to about the thickness of the portion b of the leaf a, b, c. I then take
one of these clusters and one strip i, and I paste, glue, or otherwise attach
the strip i to the outermost strip k of the cluster side by side, that is to say,
I attach the back or under surface of one side or half part of the strip i to the
outer surface of one side or half part of the strip k, as shewn in the perspective
view, Figure 5 (and perspective view of portion Figure 5), thus leaving the
other half parts of the strips i and k bare; I carefully bring together the back
edges of the strips i and (that is, the edges formed by the folding), and the
strip being narrower than the strip i it follows that a margin or portion of
the latter on the attached side will be also left bare; I proceed in like manner
with another strip and another cluster till I have attached a strip i to each
cluster of strips or folds k. I then stitch or bind all the clusters and strips k
together, as in the ordinary manner of binding a book; I next take the bare
half part of the strip i and glue or attach its back surface on the outer surface
of the side or half part of the outermost strip k of the cluster of stripsk nearest
to it, bringing together the back edges, or edges formed by the fold, so as to
leave bare a margin or portion of the strip i, as before described. And I
proceed in like manner with the otherstrips i and clusters of strips k, until each
strip i connects two clusters of strips or folds k, as shewn in Figure 5. I then
take the central part b (shewn in plan, Figure 7, and section, Figure 8,) of
each intended compound sheet or leaf a, b, c, which sheet 6 I form with a
margin m at the back, very slightly thinner than the rest of the sheet, such

page_text: margin m being of the same width as the bare margin left on each side of the
strip (see plan of portion of b, Fig. 9); this may be produced by forming the
sheet 6 compound or of three sheets or layers adhering one on the other (see
Fig. 8, section on line T, V, of Fig. 7), the outside ones not extending quite
to the back edge, but leaving bare a portion of the inside, one to form this
margin m, or the margin' m may be produced by pressing down part of the
sheet b on both surfaces at the back end for a portion of the width sufficient
to form this margin. I place the back edge of a sheet b, that is, the edge of
its margin m, parallel to the front edges of a cluster of strips k, and very
nearly but not quite in contact therewith, leaving a very small intervening
space to secure freedom of action, as shewn in the sectional view, Figure 6
(which is a broken off section enlarged on line S, P, of Fig. 1, supposing
book closed). I next paste, glue, or otherwise attach the under or back
surface of the nearest bare margin of the nearest strip i on the margin m,
bringing the edge of i up to the edge or step n, so that the strip lies compactly
in place, being prevented from projecting from the surface of b by the com-
parative thinness of the margin m; then when I paste or stick the portion a
on the surface of b to make up the compound leaf, the back end of a will be
attached to and will cover the front surface of this margin of i so lying on the
margin m. I next attach in like manner the other margin of the same strip i
to the margin m of the portion b intended for another compound sheet a, b, c,
thus connecting two sheets 6 together, that is, connecting one side of one sheet
with one side of the next sheet; this other margin is covered by the portion c
when the compound leaf is made up. I proceed in like manner with the
opposite surface of the sheet b, thus I attach to the margin m, which is on the
opposite side of the first sheet b, the margin of the next strip i which will be
covered by the portion c belonging to that sheet, the other margin of this strip
i is attached to the margin m of the portion b of the next following sheet, a,
b, c, and so on until each strip'i connects one side of each leaf or sheet a, b, c.
with the adjoining side of the next, as shewn in Figure 1. When all the
leaves a, b, c, are thus connected, the unattached half strips of i left at each
end of the book I attach to a cover or fly sheet in like manner. These stiff
leaves thus connected by the strips i may be turned over with ease without
straining the binding; the connecting strips i, moreover, when the book is
opened, conceal the strips k, which, if exposed, would present an unsightly
appearance. Any desirable outer cover or case may be attached to the book
in any convenient manner.
I may mention that theuse generally of narrow paper strips in bookbinding
is not new. I can somewhat modify the arrangement by using instead of the

page_text: clusters of paper folds, strips of pasteboard, or like material in similar manner,
that is to say, each single pasteboard strip connects two strips i. I glue or
attach one side of the pasteboard strip to the back or under surface of one
half part of a folded strip i, bringing the back edges of the strips together to
leave the bare margins of the strip i just as before described; and I attach the
other side of the pasteboard strip in like manner to the back surface of half
part of the next strip i connecting the other half part with the next strip į by
another pasteboard strip in the same manner, and so on; the strips i are
connected to the thick sheets a, b, c, as before explained. The binding is
completed by placing a piece of calico or other material over all the back
edges of the pasteboard strips, and otherwise finishing as usual in book-
binding.
Having now described the nature of the said Invention, and the manner in
which it may be performed, I declare that what I claim as new, is,―
First, the employment of the pieces and g arranged and combined, sub-
stantially in the manner and for the purpose herein-before described.
Second, the employment of what I call the "connecting strips," substantially
in the manner and for the purpose herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Ludwig Pohl, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of July, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one.
Witness,
M. HENRY, Patent Agent,
84, Fleet Street, London.
LUDWIG POHL. (L.S.)