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Method of forming punches for marks

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Author	Topic: Method of forming punches for marks
bascall Posts: 1629 Registered: Nov 99	posted 11-03-2007 11:27 PM [01-2601] I trust that this topic is germane to this forum. There's no question that the subject is interesting, but I can accept that being interesting is not sufficient to meet the criteria for the site. I also have a doubt about the use of a URL and could use some guidance about that. A simple search for URL didn't bring anything up on the subject, but I thought there were restrictions. At any rate here's the posting: Francis Bailey obtained the fifth ever U. S. Patent on the 31st of January 1791. It is handwritten and signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Edmond Randolph. Francis Bailey is credited with inventing methods for forming punches to impress matrices for printing types whether for letters or devices as well as to impress metals or other materials capable of receiving and retaining of various marks which are difficult to be counterfeited. If you go to this site uspto.gov and look under "View Full-Page Images" in the middle of the left hand column, I believe you can make your way to the original of the subject patent. Looking for other low numbers which equates to the earliest patents seems to be somewhat futile. Strange that there aren't many available. IP: Logged
Scott Martin Forum Master Posts: 11520 Registered: Apr 93	posted 11-04-2007 05:15 AM Patent Number 0000004 (click here to enlarge) IP: Logged
bascall Posts: 1629 Registered: Nov 99	posted 11-04-2007 06:56 AM Pardon me, yes it is X0000004, and the U S P T O states that pre 1836 patents begin with an "X." IP: Logged
wev Moderator Posts: 4121 Registered: Apr 99	posted 11-04-2007 10:22 AM I suspect this is a little like attempting to patent the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Baily was a successful printer, owning the right to print the acts of the Pennsylvania Assembly and publishing a popular newspaper, The Freeman's Journal. He was the primary customer of the punch-cutter and typefounder Jacob Bay, whose shop and equipment he bought outright in 1791. There is very little physical material left from this period, but it is doubtful that Bailey invented (or obtained) anything new. Cutting a punch by hand is still done today in exactly the same manner described by Moxon in The Whole Mechanic's Exercise of 1683. The patent number is just x4, by the way, and the paucity of early documents is the result of the Patent Office fire of 1836, which destroyed virtually everything. IP: Logged
bascall Posts: 1629 Registered: Nov 99	posted 11-04-2007 07:33 PM quote: Originally posted by wev: I suspect this is a little like attempting to patent the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. With someone of Jefferson's genius in so many fields to have signed Francis Bailey's patent, it confounds me to think that Bailey could have gotten a patent for essentially doing nothing. IP: Logged
wev Moderator Posts: 4121 Registered: Apr 99	posted 11-04-2007 08:07 PM We will never know, since all supporting material is now lost. Apparently, Bailey's original intent was to devise a punch design (rather than the means of making it) in an attempt to prevent counterfeiting of coinage, like Franklin's use of real tree leaves in the creation of the copperplates used for paper currency. Whatever it may have actually been, it doesn't appear that the patent did Bailey any good. And do remember that, then as now, a politician's signature on something doesn't mean he read it or, perhaps, even laid eyes on it. IP: Logged
bascall Posts: 1629 Registered: Nov 99	posted 11-04-2007 08:19 PM quote: And do remember that, then as now, a politician's signature on something doesn't mean he read it or, perhaps, even laid eyes on it. When you consider that Grover Cleveland at times felt compelled to answer the front door of the Whitehouse for himself, it is not difficult at all to imagine that a scientist and reader like Jefferson in particular would have actually been very interested in what he was signing. BTW, I've been lead to believe that the counterfeiting prevention aspect of his invention concerned printed material in particular. IP: Logged

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