GB2201636A

GB2201636A - Numeral-indicating ticket

Info

Publication number: GB2201636A
Application number: GB08801747A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Christopher Smith; Phillip Spence; Christopher Stuart; David Spear
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1987-02-09
Filing date: 1988-01-27
Publication date: 1988-09-07
Anticipated expiration: 2008-01-27
Also published as: GB8801747D0; GB2201636B; GB8702835D0

Abstract

A numeral-indicating ticket having at least one design visible thereon, said design comprising a plurality of discrete segments and a background, the configuration of said segments being such that a combination thereof can represent any desired digit from zero to nine, a surface covering or comprising said design segments being receptive to a marking agent such that application of said agent to said surface either reveals a selected segment or obscures said segment by substantially eliminating visual contrast between said segment and the background. <IMAGE>

Description

Numeral-indicating ticket The present invention relates to a ticket capable of indicating a numeral. More particularly it relates to a ticket which may be modified in order to clearly indicate any specific numeral which is desired.

A large number of circumstances exist in which a clear figure indication is required, for example, of a price, length, time or quantity, but where the particular figure may change over a period of time or where a number of different indications are required. Such situations include shelf tickets showing the price of goods on any one particular shelf in a shop, price tickets on larger individual items for sale such as cars, and labels indicating lengths of materials, for example, wood in a warehouse. Handwritten tickets necessarily lack uniformity and are usually less clear and distinct than formally printed or stencilled tickets would be. The use of either printed tickets or tranferable printed numerals is of course well known and usually preferred within the art.However, these alternatives necessitate keeping an adequate stock of each digit or even of each entire numeral separately with the consequential problems of maintaining sufficient numbers of all the possible permutations and of reordering each number individually.

An alternative system, often used to display the price of cars, consists of a composite number indicator wherein each individual digit can be represented by any one of ten interchangeable sheets which can be displayed at will. A single indicator of this type can be used to display any required number d is, of course, reusable. However, it is necessarily rather bulk and relatively expensive.

According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a numeral-indicating ticket having at least one design visible thereon, said design comprising a plurality of discrete segments and a background, the configuration of said segments being such that a combination thereof can represent any desired digit from zero to nine, a surface covering or comprising said design segments being receptive to a marking agent such that application of said agent to said surface either reveals a selected segment or obscures said segment by substantially eliminating visual contrast between said segment and the background.

Preferably said design comprises at least one seven-segment figure-of-eight digit.

The ticket may be of any suitable material such as, for example, plastics, metal, paper or card and may comprise a single or multi-layered structure. Preferably the ticket has a plastics or plastics coated surface which is receptive to the marking agent to be used but which is resistant to a cleaning solution such as, for example, water or organic solvent which can be used to remove the marking agent. The marking agent may be applied by means of, for example, a wax crayon or chinograph pencil or preferably in the form of a quick-drying liquid by means of a suitable applicator such as a brush or more preferably a felt-tip or marker pen. The marking agent is preferably removable from the ticket surface bywater or, where a waterproof display is required, by an organic solvent.

Our invention also contemplates a ticket in which the said segments are transparent and are selectively obscured by application of the marking agent to the reverse face of the ticket.

A ticket of this type will, in use, either be placed against a suitable background or be transilluminated.

To provide greater security against accidental or malicious alteration of the digits making up the numeral, the surface of the ticket may be made repellent to most aqueous and solvent-based compositions, e.g. by coating with an appropriate silicone or fluorocarbon derivative such as PTFE. The marking agent will of course require to be formulated in a medium capable of wetting such surfaces, or may be applied to the reverse face of a transparent ticket as described above.

The ticket design preferably comprises a printed seven-segment design, such as is well known in the art of liquid crystal displays. The segments may be of any colour but are preferably visually distinct, for example, of white, luminous or fluorescent colouring. The design background may be of any contrasting colour but is preferably dark. A black background is particularly preferred because of the availability and wide range of possible marking agents which can then be employed such as, for example, wax crayons, chinagraph pencils or marker pens. However, it is understood that the design may consist of any two contrasting colours or visual values and include dark segments on a light background as well as light segments on a dark background.

The ticket may include a number of additional visible features thereon, such as currency symbols, decimal points, and/or suitable identification marks, for example, a "housemark" identifying the proprietor of the goods to which the numeral applies.

It will be appreciated that the present invention thus overcomes a number of problems of longstanding in the art. A single ticket may be used to represent any required numeral so that only a single stock of tickets is required for any one use, vastly simplifying stocking and reordering arrangements.

The uniformity of all the tickets required allows production costs to be lower than for conventional tickets so that the product is cheaper and in addition, the tickets may be reusable to allow still further economy.

In another embodiment of our invention, the marking agent is not expungeable. This has the drawback that the ticket is generally only usable once, unless fortuitously it is possible to make a desired alteration to the digit by obscuring further segments, e.g. by altering 9 to 7, 5, 4, 3 or 1. On the other hand, this modification can give greater security against accidental or malicious alteration of the numeral, especially if the marking step is effected by chemical means.

For example, the segments of the digits may be printed with an ink which reacts chemically with the marking agent to alter their colour or to darken or bleach out said segments. Alternatively the segments may be printed in a heat-sensitive medium and can be caused to darken, or to disappear, by local application of heat such as from a heated wand which may e.g. be electrically powered or use catalytic combustion of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) as the source of heat.

Numerous chemical systems suitable for the ink/marking agent combination are known, e.g.

those based on leuco dyes. Heat-sensitive media are known from thermal printing technology. When the segments are caused to darken against a light background by application of a chemical or heat, it will be convenient to outline the segment faintly in normal ink to provide guidance to the user.

The invention further provides a labelling kit comprising a plurality of numeral-indicating tickets according to the invention, a supply of liquid marking agent and an applicator therefor.

A single embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawing which is a plan view of a numeral-indicating ticket according to the invention.

The numeral indicating ticket 1 comprises a rectangular plastics sheet. The plastics material is flexible but sufficiently resilient to ensure ease of handling. The dark coloured background 2 is printed onto the ticket surface after manufacture and is formed of a water and solvent insoluble material such as indelible ink. The surface of the ticket is compatible with a typical black marker pen such that application of the ink of said pen to the exposed surface of the plastic ticket, for instance to a design segment 3, substantially eliminates the visual contrast between segment and background; the digit is thus altered from 8 to 9.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. A numeral-indicating ticket having at least one design visible thereon, said design comprising a plurality of discrete segments and a background, the configuration of said segments being such that a combination thereof can represent any desired digit from zero to nine, a surface covering or comprising said design segments being receptive to a marking agent such that application of said agent to said surface either reveals a selected segment or obscures said segment by substantially eliminating visual contrast between said segment and the background.

2. A ticket according to claim 1 wherein said design comprises at least one seven-segment figureof-eight digit.

3. A ticket according to claim 1 or 2 having a plastics or plastics coated surface.

4. A ticket according to any of the preceding claims wherein said background is black.

5. A ticket acording to claim 4 wherein said segments are white or fluorescent.

6. A ticket according to claim 4 wherein said Sent dTd arc -fi L Ler.l.

7. A ticket according to claim 6 adapted to be marked on the reverse face thereof.

8. A ticket according to any of the preceding claims wherein the segments are adapted to marked by a wax crayon or by a suitable dye, paint or ink composition.

9. A ticket according to any of claims 1 to 7 wherein the segments are adapted to react chemically with said marking agent and thereby be altered in colour, darkened or bleached.

10. A ticket according to any of claims 1 to 7 wherein said segments are adapted to be caused to darken or to disappear by local application of heat.

11. A ticket according to any of the preceding claims wherein said design further comprises a currency symbol, decimal point and/or a housemark to identify the proprietor of the goods to which the numeral applies.

12. A ticket according to claim 1, substantially as described herein.

13. A numeral-indicating ticket, substantially as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.

14. A labelling kit comprising a plurality of numeralindicating tickets according to any of the preceding claims, a supply of liquid marking agent and an applicator therefor.