Summary

Red-Seal "flat bed" duplicator, similar to an Edison mimeograph machine.

Type of duplicator in use prior to invention of rotary machines.

The duplicatotr comes i a wooden box. The box fitted internally with printing screen, hand inking roller, base-tablet, inking press (?).

The screen is spring loaded onto the top tablet.

This description comes from the Early Office Museum website:
(This duplicator was) 'sold in rectangular wooden boxes. The boxes contained a hand printing frame that consisted of a flat bed or printing board and a hinged frame that held the stencil. The boxes also contained an ink roller, an inking slate, ink, varnish and a brush for making corrections, waxed stencil paper, blotters, a writing stylus, and a writing plate with a file-like surface that was 1.5" to 3" top-to-bottom and as wide as the printing frame.
To prepare a handwritten stencil, "A sheet of Mimeograph stencil paper is placed over the finely grooved steel plate and written upon with a smooth pointed steel stylus, and in the line of the writing so made, the stencil paper will be perforated from the under side with minute holes, in such close proximity to each other that the dividing fibers of paper are scarcely perceptible." After the operator has written a few lines, the operator moves the stencil upward over the writing plate so that a new portion of the stencil is on top of the writing plate. "After the stencil is completed it is placed in the printing frame, by which the stencil is firmly held taut and in a position for rapid printing. After inking the roller on the slate furnished for that purpose, pass it over the stencil sheet and a correct reproduction of the matter stenciled will appear on the paper which has been previously placed underneath.""
http://www.officemuseum.com/copy_machines.htm - accessed 17 November 2008

The following items accompany the box:
Collapsible tube of possibly ink
Screw top bottle of correcting fluid
Packaging for bottle of correcting fluid

Physical Description

Wooden box with label on lid. Box fitted internally with printing screen, roller, base-tablet, inking press. Screen is spring loaded onto top tablet.

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