US193006A - Improvement in street-signs - Google Patents

Description

PpA. La FRANCE.

STREET-SIGN.

No. 193,006. v Pate nted Ju1.y 10,1877.

- light shining UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

PETER A. LA FRANOE, OF ELMIRA, NEW YORK, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-HALF HIS RIGHT TO ALEXANDER H.

BALDWIN, OF SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT IN STREET-SIGNS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 193,006, dated July 10, 1877; application filed January 23, 1877.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, PETER A. LA FRANcE, of Elmira, in the county of Ghemung and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Street-Signs, of which the following is a specification:

This invention relates to that class of invention or signs which are suspended on the streetlampsfand "are read at night by the through the sign, the letters beingopaque, and in which the letters show by day against the transparent ground. In Letters Patent N 0. 174,079, issued to said LA FRANCE on the 29th day of February, A. 'D. 1876, the mode of attachin g such signs to the frames of street-lamps is shown. The signs there proposed were made of glass, and the words and figures were painted on the glass. In the introduction of that invention I have encountered the objection that the glass signs were liable to be broken, and to obviate that I now propose to make them entirely of metal and to this end my invention consists in making a frame of U-formed strips, kept parallel by means of strips fastened to the backs of the longitudinal strips so as to leave the groove open, and free to receive letters orfigures,

made of cast metal, having projecting stems at top and bottom to be received in the grooves where they are secured when the proper combination has been formed by pinching the sides of the grooves on each side of the stems, thus exhibiting the full length of the perfectly-formed letters or figures.

In the annexed drawings, making part of this specification, Figure I is a perspective view of a section of the sign, showing the letters as placed in the grooves, and Fig. II is a name to this specification in the similar view, showing the sign as completed by pinching the sides of the grooves between the stems.

Two strips, AA, are cut to the proper form, and bent into a U form, the open parts of the grooves are opposed to one another, and the strips are then connected by bars 0, soldered to the backs of both strips so as to leave the grooves open to receive figures or letters B, which are cast in various sizes, if necessary, but madeof equal lengths by stems B at the top and bottom. When these letters are to be inserted the stems are slid into the opposed grooves, and properly spaced to form the required combination, the letters proper being midway between the parallel strips A A, the

stems being received in the grooves. The

sides of the grooves are then set down against one another, as shown in Fig. II, confining the stems and completing the sign, which may then be suspended from the lamp in any known manner.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

Signs for street-lamps, combining in their construction frames with parallel U--formed sides of flexible sheet metal and "stemmed letters or figures, insertedand held in place by pinching the frames on each side of the stem s, substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed my presence of two subscribing witnesses.

P. A. LA FRANCE.

Witnesses:

0. A. REED, EDWARD GODDARD.

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