The Perforated-Character Ticket Punch: A Figure Pricked in Pins, So the Print Stays Readable

A conductor's punch cut out a whole figure from the ticket, and when he punched over a printed number, that number was lost, which caused confusion when the tickets were counted. William J. Phelps of Springfield, Massachusetts, received US 79,498, dated 30 June 1868, for "such construction of the die and counter-die of a punch, whereby the printed or written matter upon a ticket or coupon will still remain plain and discernible, even after the said ticket or coupon has been cancelled or punched." The die's lower end is cut away to leave a group of projections forming the figure, a triangle in his drawing, and the counter-die has matching perforations; the projections may be made longer on one side "to give a shearing cut, or to enable some of the projections to partially make their cut before the others". This rung compares the force for a pin group and a solid figure and the gain from staggering, then files a pin-group die and counter-die and punches over printed figures.