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Automatic Numbering Machines

Velos Lightning Numbering Machine
Gems Numbering Machine
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History
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Patents
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Velos Lightning Numbering Machine

The Lightning Numbering Machine No. 999 was made by Velos in the United Kingdom. It is unclear if Velos is a company or merely a brand name, as the Velos products seem to be only sold by Frank Pitchford & Co. Ltd. (1932-1936), and then Rees, Pitchford and Co. Ltd. (1937-1950). Velos made a variety of office products, including perforators, staplers, letter openers, ink stands, pencil sharpeners, stamping affixers, etc.

The machine has 6 number wheels, and the advancing mechanism works over the whole register. There is a selection switch for the advancing action that has 5 options: 0 for no advancement, 1 to increment the number every time, and 2,3,4 to repeat each number that many times before incrementing.
The number wheels have 11 possible orientations, because not only are there the digits 0 to 9, there is also a narrow blank spot between 0 and 1. This allows numbers to be printed without leading zeros, and the advancing mechanism skips over that so that both the 0 and the blank spot will advance to 1.

When I got this machine it was partly seized up, so I had to completely disassemble it as shown in the pictures below. Reassembling is very difficult since those springs are very strong, and I had to do it inside a transparent bag just in case a spring and ball accidentally shot away. On the side of the machine is the number AB10999 (where the AB forms a ligature a bit like Æ) which I presume is some kind of model number.

GEMS Numbering Machine

This automatic numbering machine was made in the Netherlands by GEMS. I presume GEMS refers to Gems Metaalwerken in Vorden, but I have no proof of this. This company was founded in 1830 by Hendrik Emsbroek, a coppersmith, and over the years it was variously called H. Emsbroek or G. Emsbroek depending on the name of the descendant leading the company. In the late 1930s the name was shortened to Gems Metaalwerken. The company still exists today, but is now called Emsbroek.

The machine has 7 number wheels, but the advancing mechanism only works over the last 4 digits. There is a selection switch for the advancing action that has 5 options: ∞ for no advancement, 1 to increment the number every time, and 3,2,4 to repeat each number that many times before incrementing. Note how options 3 and 2 are swapped. This makes 2 and 4 adjacent so that these two options can be implemented by a single wheel instead of two.
The left-most of the 7 number wheels has a blank space instead of a zero, so the machine always prints at least 6 digits, including leading zeros.

I have not disassembled this machine, since it worked fine after some lubrication. On the side of the machine is the model number 7-3½, presumably the number of digits and the font size, and the serial number 17388.
It also has the text "WET. GEDEP", short for Wettelijk Gedeponeerd which means Patent Pending. I have not found a patent, but older Dutch patents are hard to find without an explicit number or date.

Video

History

Simple stamps have been used for millenia, whether for art or for impressing a mark in a wax seal. There are a number of innovations that fed into the creation of automatic numbering machines.

The first major innovation is self-inking stamps. At first in the 1850s these were desktop models reminiscent of large perforators, with a base and a large lever or plunger, and to use it you had to insert the paper and pull the lever. One reason for this is that the ink was applied to the stamp using rollers because of the characteristics of the ink. In the 1860s the first self-inking hand stamps were developed which use a small ink pad. Usually the ink pad is upside down a the top of the mechanism with the type pushed up into it, and when you press the plunger the type moves down, flips over and hits the paper.

The second major innovation is to have number wheels that can be set to print any number, and a mechanism to easily increase that number. That incrementing mechanism can be activated manually by pulling a lever, or automatically every time the number is stamped.

The final innovation is the mechanism to only increment every other time the number is stamped, printing each number twice. This was patented by Edwin G. Bates in 1891, and this kind of numbering is still called Bates numbering. The story of the Bates Numbering Machine is interesting, so here is a brief summary.

Edwin G. Bates and Samuel Insull set up the Bates Manufacturing Company in 1890 in order to get Bates's inventions into production. Insull was president of the company, while Bates was the general manager and treasurer, and each had about half the company shares. They hired the Edison Phonograph Works to help manufacture the devices. One of the first products was a small numbering machine for use by printers as a typesetting element, but soon they developed various hand stamp numbering machines that implement Bates numbering. After two years Edison was owed so much money that in order to recover it they in effect agreed to take over the business until the debts were paid off in return for getting half the shares. The Bates Manufacturing Company essentially became a sales and marketing company for the numbering machines that Edison made.

In 1895 Bates left the company for unknown reasons, though it is seems he had a falling out with the company and Insull. The company continued without Bates, since it owned all the patent rights to the numbering machines. In 1921 Edison sold off the company to Clarence S. A. Williams, who was then president of the company until 1958. He was succeeded by his son, Clarence E. Williams, and then the grandson Thomas M. Williams, until in 1993 it was bought by the General Binding Corp.

Within a year of leaving the company, Edwin Bates started trading under the name the Bates Machine Company. He wrote to former clients offering to repair and service any Bates machines, and supply new ones. This was clearly deceptive, and his former business partners forced him to sell the 25% of Bates Mfg Co shares that he still owned, severing all his ties to the old company. The Bates Machine Company was formally registered in 1899.

The Bates Machine Company eventually began to manufacture their own Bates numbering machines, incorporating various improvements that Bates had devised. These came in the market in about 1905. Edwin Bates died in 1907, and several people then left to found the American Numbering Machine Company (see also the Denominator). The company nevertheless continued without them, and in 1909 it was renamed the Bates Numbering Machine Company. This clearly went too far in imitating the original Bates Manufacturing Company and their numbering machine. Without the excuse of using the company director's name, they lost in court and had to stop their deceptive practices.

In 1910 the company was bought by William C. Roberts, a retired businessman from the watch and jewelry trade, and renamed the Roberts Numbering Machine Company. Although Roberts died the next year, the company kept his name for many decades. In 1956 the company was bought by the Heller Corporation, and became the Heller Roberts Manufacturing Corporation.

Advertisements and articles

Bates Manufacturing Company

Here are a selection of the many ads and articles about the original Bates Numbering Machine as made by the Bates Manufacturing Company.

Bates Machine Company / Roberts Numbering Machine Company

The following are about the Bates Machine Company and its numbering machines, the Bates Numbering Machine Company, and the Roberts Numbering Machine Company.

Velos

GEMS

Here are some ads and aricles related to G. Emsbroek / GEMS. Note that I have not found any proof that they were the manufacturer of my numbering machine, nor any proof that they even made such small metal apparatus.

Lastly some ads and articles about other brands of numbering machines for historical context.

Patents

I have not found patents specific to the two numbering machines I own, so below I list a selection of patents for various other numbering machines that provide some historical context.

Links

• Reiner is a German company that still makes numbering machines with similar mechanisms to mine.
• Emsbroek seems to be the company that made the GEMS numbering machine.
• Chris Staecker has a nice video about the Bates Numbering Machine.
• Archive.org has scans of microfilm records from Edison related to the Bates Manufacturing Company, and a copy of the Federal Reporter with the judgement in the Bates Mfng Co vs Bates Machine Co courtcase.

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