Tuesday, April 08, 2008

What is This?


Can you guess what this is and what it was used for?

6 comments:

  1. I'm guessing an old type-setting machine?

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  2. Some kinda teletype machine?

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  3. The clipboard to the left and the box to the right must be clues. I'm thinking it's a machine that embosses lettering on something. I'm not sure what, because it looks like anything you would feed through the top of that thing would get severely snarled. I'd hate to get an arm caught in there.

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  4. Never saw one before but I know it's not a computer!

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  5. Jeff is closest. This is called a Graphotype. It used addressograph plates, which are metal, to emboss metal tags with names and numbers, like dog tags. A local farmer's cooperative feed store used this machine to label its products in the 1950s and maybe longer. I had never seen one before and figured many others had not either.

    According to graphotype.net, this thing weighs about 400 pounds.

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  6. As owner of www.Graphotype.net, I can tell you this is indeed a graphotype machine. If found in a feed store, they most likely used this machine to produce addressing labels for invoices and mailings.

    The machine is all cast iron and does weigh 400 lbs, in this configuration.

    This is a great photo and I really appreciate the tag line for the web site. The machine in this photo is very clean and appears to be a 638x series, more than likely a 6381 upper and lower case machine.

    Thank you again it is so nice to see a machine in its natual enviroment.

    David H

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