Renseignements généraux

Nº de série

42J59

Nº de partie

1

Nombre total de parties

1

Ou

S/O

Brevets

S/O

Description générale

Metal with felt cover on printing stage and wood handle, paper wrapped around rollers - rollers are metal, rubber feet/ sticky substance on paper covering rollers (remains of a gelatine coating?)

Dimensions

Remarque : Cette information reflète la taille générale pour l’entreposage et ne représente pas nécessairement les véritables dimensions de l’objet.

Longueur

55,5 cm

Largeur

46,5 cm

Hauteur

28,5 cm

Épaisseur

S/O

Poids

S/O

Diamètre

S/O

Volume

S/O

Lexique

Groupe

Imprimerie

Catégorie

Duplication

Sous-catégorie

S/O

Fabricant

Ou

Ditto

Pays

United States of America

État/province

Illinois

Ville

Chicago

Contexte

Pays

Inconnu

État/province

Inconnu

Période

Inconnu

Canada

Taken from acquisition proposal: This hectograph is a direct predecessor of the Ditto spirit duplicator, which became the primary small-scale duplicator brand used in Canada in the mid-twentieth century. Widely used in the United States and Canada, hectographs like this one were common in offices and stores before the commercialization of spirit duplicators. Their primary use was to reproduce handwritten departmental orders and captions for circulation within businesses and offices.

Fonction

To make multiple copies of a document.

Technique

Taken from acquisition proposal: To perform the duplicating process, the user would first create a master sheet, handwritten with a slow-drying aniline ink. This sheet would be pressed face-down on the duplicator’s flat surface, under the platen roller. As the user passed the roller over the back of the sheet, the gelatinized duplicating band would absorb most of the ink, creating a mirror image. The user could then place multiple sheets of paper into the feeder slot on the platen roller, which would slip through one by one onto the gelatin surface. As the user continued to pass the roller over each sheet of paper, the pressure from the roller would transfer the ink to the surface of the paper, creating a duplicate copy. One master sheet could create fifteen to forty copies. Smaller models, like this one, included only one duplicating band, but larger models could accommodate two duplicating bands (see Patent No. 965,887) to allow a variety of documents to be printed under a single header or caption. While hectographs continued to be used for duplication into the 1970s (and later for the purposes of artistic printmaking), the advent of the cheaper and more efficient spirit duplicator marked the end of Ditto’s commercial hectograph production. Ditto spirit duplicators became so popular, in fact, that the term ‘ditto machine’ soon became public shorthand for all spirit duplicators on the market, regardless of manufacturer. This type example of a Ditto machine, representing the copying process immediately preceding the invention of spirit duplication, grants insight into the influential trademark’s early history. It’s also the sole type example currently in the national collection that represents gelatin-based (hectograph) duplication technology.

Notes sur la région

Inconnu

Détails

Marques

Painted on side 'REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. [pair of large quotation marks inside a circle]/ Ditto/ Ditto Incorporated - Chicago/ Patented Aug. 2, 1910 March 5, 1912. Nov. 24, 1914. June 1, 1915. July 16, 1918. PATENTS/ PENDING./ MADE IN U.S.A.'/ Plate marked '42J59'/ Painted 'OIL'.

Manque

S/O

Fini

Body painted green with gold lettering and trim; some unfinished silver coloured working parts; green felt cover on printing stage; black substance rollers.

Décoration

Gold coloured piping around frame.