Electrostatic label printer

Claim 1

In an apparatus for electrostatically printing address labels on an endless web material from cards having address information thereon, the combination of means for feeding the cards through the apparatus, means for producing electrostatically images of the address information on the web material, means for advancing the web material in timed relationship with said card feeding means and the image producing means; a supply tray for said cards, said tray including an apertured base section; said card feeding means including at least one driven roll below said supply tray base section and opposite an apertured portion of said base; means for intermittently lowering said supply tray to bring the bottommost card in said supply tray into contact with said driven roll whereby to feed the bottommost card forward from said supply tray; gate means to restrain simultaneous feeding of cards remaining in said supply tray; and means for driving said tray lowering means in timed relation with said image producing means to feed a succession of address cards forward from said supply tray and enable said image producing means to print a succession of address labels on said web material; said card feeding means including means adapted following feed of each card forward from said supply tray to cause said cards to ride up upon the preceding card whereby to block off by means of said preceding card a portion of the succeeding card from imaging by said image producing means.