The Embossed Soft-Metal Label: A Name Pressed In, Not Written On

"The invention consists in the provision of a piece of sheet lead, preferably of fine gage, partially incased and removably held in a frame of zinc or the like metal, or in any suitable material that forms a backing for the lead". "To obtain a deeper impression a piece of paper may be inserted between the sheet lead and the backing." "When it is desired to use the label for a fresh purpose such as, for instance, a change of names from one flower to another, the existing name may be erased by rubbing the lead surface with any hard instrument, as a knife handle."

**Frame.** Cut a piece of aluminium sheet 110 × 50 mm with the tin snips. With the flat-nose pliers fold 5 mm over along both long edges and one end, each into a channel, leaving the other end open. **Insert.** Cut the soft aluminium foil from the embossing kit to slide into the channels, with a piece of paper cut to the same size behind it. Slide both in and fold the open end shut. **Write.** Write the plant's name firmly with the pencil. Write a second name on a foil offcut with no paper behind it and compare how deep the letters go. **Test.** Write the same name in pencil on a wooden stake. Rub each 20 times with emery cloth, wet, and compare what can still be read. Then rub the foil smooth with the knife handle and write a new name.

**James Stewart**, plumber, a subject of King George V living at 3 Dowling Street, Dunedin, filed US 1,065,475 on 26 September 1911; it is dated 24 June 1913. His frame was preferably zinc, folded round the edges of the lead, and his drawings show a label to tie on and a pointed plant label. **Honest limits.** Soft aluminium tooling foil replaces Stewart's sheet lead, which is poisonous, and an aluminium frame his zinc one. Foil on paper embosses by bending, not by the direct indentation the notebook computes for lead. The yield strengths are typical values; the point and forces are examples. Your scrub test is the result.