Magnetic recording structure

Claim 1

A decoratively colored magnetic recording card, bankbook, or ledger including a substrate of a paper or a plastic sheet having an outer surface and a laminar magnetic recording piece disposed adjacent to at least one part of the outer surface of the substrate, said recording piece having a dark-colored magnetic layer for storing magnetically recorded information for subsequent readout, the improvement wherein the laminar magnetic recording piece further comprises: a nonmetallic decorative color layer comprising an ink containing a pigment or a dye and a binder principally composed of a natural or synthetic resin and a non-magnetic light-colored metal deposition layer interposed between the magnetic layer and the nonmetallic color layer, said magnetic layer being closer to the substrate than the color layer, the non-magnetic metal deposition layer having a thickness between about 0.02 micron and about 0.1 micron sufficient to hide the color of the magnetic layer, and the combined thickness of the non-magnetic metal layer and the decorative color layer being less than the thickness of the decorative color layer alone that would be required to hide the color of the magnetic layer, whereby a decorative color layer is provided without impairing the readout characteristics of the magnetic recording structure.