AN IMPROVED MACHINE FOR PRINTING ADDRESSES ON ENVELOPES, PAPERS, AND SUCH LIKE ARTICLES
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Friedrich Hermann Felix Engel at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 3rd May 1880. A
communication from Gustav Wilhelm Seitz, of Wandsbeck, in the German
Empire.
FRIEDRICH HERMANN FELIX ENGEL, Civil Engineer and Patent Agent, of the
City of Hamburg, Germany. "AN IMPROVED MACHINE FOR PRINTING ADDRESSES
ON ENVELOPES, PAPERS, AND SUCH LIKE ARTICLES." A communication from
Gustav Wilhelin Seitz, of Wandsbeck, in the German Empire.
The object of this Invention is the construction of a machine applicable for the
printing of addresses on envelopes, papers, circulars, and such like articles, and it is
specially constructed for use by firms, persons, or societies which have to make
frequent or repeated communications to the same circle of customers, as provident
institutions, building societies, companies to the members or shareholders, news-
paper dealers to their customers, and so forth. The addressing of letters, circulars,
or other papers can on this machine be executed in a very short time, whilst at same
time the use of such a machine does not allow that one or other address might be
overlooked or omitted.
The machine consists in one construction of a wheel or disc turning on an axle
which carries upon its outer circumference the different addresses in relief, and at
equal distance each one address from the next following one. The wheel or disc is
in communication with a ratchet-wheel moved either by a treadle, by hand, or by a
motor, by which arrangement the disc is rocked each time for the distance of one
address from the next following one. After each single motion of the disc an
envelope, paper, or other article which has to be furnished with an address, is
placed underneath the disc upon a headplate of a vertical shaft, which latter is by
the action of a lever or other convenient arrangement moved upwand and copies
the corresponding address from the disc on to the envelope, paper, etc. The single
plates or relief addresses of the disc must have been previously furnished with
printing ink from a printing ink roller which is pressed against the circumference
of the disc, whilst the latter is several times turned on its axle by a handle or
similar arrangement after the disc is disengaged from the ratchet wheel.
Instead of fastening or attaching the different addresses to the circumference of
a wheel or disc, the same may be attached to each other in form of an endless band
consisting of metal plates, each furnished with an address in relief, and be connected

page_text: to each other by joints or links, and the handle be placed (over or) around two
rollers or cylinders of polygonal section, one of which may be in connection with a
ratchet wheel as before described, and rocked in a similar manner.
If the addresses of a certain number of customers of one firm, or of the members
of a club, or so forth, are thus placed on the disc of the machine or on an endless
band, as before described, the operation of printing the addresses on to envelopes
and the like can be executed in a very short time, and almost with complete security
that no address will be overlooked or be omitted in printing.