It's like someone closed a valve 40 years ago, and a raging river was cut off.
There were millions of Addressograph users, the majority of them small and
medium-sized businesses which had small staffs for doing a LOT of invoicing and
billing. You name it -- insurance offices, small manufacturing, radiator
wholesale distributors, warehouses, doctors . . .they all used the addressing
machines. Many bought their own debossers, while most had someone else make the
plates. I knew one guy in Hawaii whose whole business was making plates at a
dollar each. During the last few years before he retired, he had half a dozen
6400s and hired college girls to run them. He retired rich in his 50s.

Then . . .*POOF* the market was gone, most of the machines went to scrap
dealers, and the whole world forgot that such things had even existed. The
computer line printer (mostly using Centronics engines, no matter whose name was
on the front), running from mainframe and minicomputers, had taken the mid- and
large-business market by 1975. The "Dirty Pair" (Centronics and Epson) had
destroyed the small-biz market by 1980, by bringing out reliable and relatively
inexpensive impact printers for microcomputers, and the advent of the Canon
laser engine, with HP's name on the front, killed the last of the market by
1990. The only users now are the dogtag makers and the handful of people who
need an impact-printing, low-tech system, such as those using non-electronic
credit card systems.

As far as the metallurgy of Alloy B, I can't help you there. I never knew what
it was. You might talk to a metal jobber about that, give them one of your
plates and see what they can come up with for you. It doesn't have to be a
lab-perfect match. Given the choice, I would pick a metal just slightly softer
rather than one which was any harder, since you can't just pick up the phone and
order new dies from your local dealer!

If you need a lot of them, or a steady source, you might have someone make you a
set of cutting dies (the patent on the wavy design expired decades ago) so that
you can make all you need.

Keith

--- In Graphotype_Machines@yahoogroups.com, "dmmlemur" <dmm@...> wrote:
>
> Keith,
>
> Thanks for the very interesting, very detailed information on the
> history of Addressograph and the plates for the machines. I've
> been surprised at how thoroughly information on these machines seems
> to have disappeared - moreso than in other areas of old technology.
>
> > Dogtag blanks are stainless steel.
> ...
> > You can make plates of any suitable metal of the proper
> >thickness and size. Alloy B was developed to give the best
> >set of tradeoffs regarding deformation when made (when you want
> >it to bend cleanly) against deformation when used (when you want
> >it to keep its shape without bending).
>
> What would a "suitable metal" be? Stainless like the dogtags?
> Or a softer metal such as brass or aluminum?
> Is the (approximate, even) metallurgical composition of Alloy B known?
> I tend to like to preserve consumables when the get to the state of
> rarity that they're collector's items, so I'd like to figure out
> how to make my own plates (without damaging the machine - I did
> note the WARNING not in the "Reference Book" not to run it without
> plates).
>
> Thanks again for the information!
>
> Regards,
> David M. MacMillan
> dmm at lemur dot com
>