Folding wall shelf

Claim 1

A folding wall shelf comprising: a bracket adapted to be secured to a wall in an upright position; said bracket having an outwardly extending stop intermediate the ends thereof; a writing support; means pivotally mounting an upper portion of the support to the bracket so that said support can be swung from a substantially vertical collapsed position to a pre-determined inclined position; prop means operatively associated with said support and said bracket for retaining said support in said predetermined inclined position or permitting said support to be collapsed into substantial parallelism with said bracket when said support is in its collapsed position, said prop means having one portion thereof pivoted to said support, and having another free end-including portion thereof adapted to lie above said one portion when said support is in its collpased position and to swing downwardly and into engagement with the stop on said bracket when said support is swung to said predetermined inclined position; and second stop means positioned above said pivotal mounting means and including and inclined edge on said bracket engageable by a portion on said support for preventing said support from being swung beyond said predetermined position; and for preventing said another free end-including portion of said prop means from moving downwardly beyond said stop on said bracket; the distance between the point at which said one portion is pivoted and said stop on said bracket being less than the length of said prop means from said point to the extremity of said free end-including portion when said support portion is engaging said inclined edge.