IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO LABELS FOR EXPRESS POSTAL AND SIMILAR PURPOSES
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 14th July 1880. A communication
from abroad by James H. Small, of Buffalo, New York, United States of
America.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, and Co., Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO LABELS
FOR EXPRESS POSTAL AND SIMILAR PURPOSES." [A communication from abroad
by James H. Small, of Buffalo, New York, United States of America.]
This Invention relates to labels designed to be affixed to packages, letters,
telegrams, and other articles which are carried or transmitted by express or
telegraph companies or through the post.
The object of the said Invention is to provide ready means for keeping an
account of all packages or articles carried, and the money received for carrying or
transmitting the same, and to enable the sender and receiver to readily ascertain
the amount charged for such transmission, thereby preventing the person who
collects the charges from collecting more than the amount charged.
This Invention consists in a book or packet of labels, each composed of a stub
and address portion, numbered consecutively, and provided with a value designation,
the address portion being gummed on its reverse side; the said Invention also
consists in combining with the adhesive label a receipt portion, which may be sent
out with the label, and returned to the sender as a voucher for the receipt of the
package, or be otherwise used, as hereinafter set forth.
In carrying the said Invention into practice I employ a series of labels numbered
consecutively, and provided with suitable lines or spaces for the insertion of the
address. The name of the individual or corporation issuing the label, the place
from which the label is good or available, and words indicating whether the charges
are paid or to be collected, are preferably printed on the label, which has preferably
printed upon its face, in figures or otherwise, the designation of its value. The
said labels are gummed on their reverse side to permit them to be readily affixed
to the package, letter, or other article to, be sent, and are combined with stubs,
each bearing the same number, value, designation, and other printed matter and
spaces as the adjacent label. The lines of separation between the stubs and labels

page_text: arė perforated, so that each label can be readily detached from the stubs which
remain bound together.
When the labels are designed to be used on packages which are sent through the
mails the labels have printed or otherwise secured to their address surface a postage
stamp or other design receivable for postage, in such manner that the act of
inscribing the address will operate as a cancellation of such stamp or design.
In using these labels the address is written both upon the label and stub; the
label is then detached from the stub and banded to the sender by the person who
receives the price of the label at the office, say, of an express company, and the
label is affixed by the sender to the package. By this means the sender is enabled
to satisfy himself that he has paid only the price actually charged for the service
by the company, and the company has a full record of the transaction on the-stub
from which the label was detached. Books of labels of different values corre-
sponding with the sums charged in the business in which they are used are
provided, and such books may be sold to customers by the carriers; the labels may
then be affixed to the packages by the sender in a similar manner to that in which
postage stamps are affixed to letters. Labels of this character may also be
advantageously employed in prepaying telegraph messages by affixing them to the
messages, whereby an account of the money received for messages is kept in a very
simple and efficient manner.
When a receipt portion is employed it is arranged at the outer edge of each
label, and bears the same number as the label to which it is attached. This receipt
portion is provided with the necessary lines or spaces to receive the signature of
the person who receives the package, the date on which it is received, and such
other matter as may be found proper or useful. The receipt portion can be
detached from the label by the person who receives the package, and can be
returned to the sender, or it may be otherwise used as a voucher in any desired
manner.