Museo OFFICINA DELLA SCRITTURA - Edison's Mimeograph

Before the laser printer, before the Xerox, and before the carbon copy, there was the mimeograph. Thomas A. Edison files a patent in the United States for autograph printing using an electric pen. A second patent further developed his system for "preparing autograph stencils for printing." Albert Blake Dick licensed the patent and began manufacturing equipment to make stencils for reproducing handwritten text. In 1887, the AB Dick Company released The Edison's Mimeograph model "0" flatbed duplicator selling for $12. It was an immediate success. The hinged wooden box has a large label printed on the top reading "The Edison Mimeograph invented by Thomas A. Edison, made by AB Dick Company, Chicago, Ill." A number of patents are noted on the label, the latest from 1890. Inside the box are a printing frame, an inking plate, an inking roller, an ink tube and a tube of waxed wrapping paper. One container is empty, perhaps for a stylus and/or other writing instruments.
The description of the process reads: “To prepare a handwritten stencil, a sheet of mimeograph stencil paper is placed over the finely grooved steel plate and written on with a smooth pointed steel stylus, and in the line of the writing thus made , the stencil paper will be punched from the underside with tiny holes, so close to each other that the separating paper fibers are barely noticeable. This stencil was inserted into the frame and, when inked, produced a copy of the handwritten text on the paper underneath."