Holding arrangement for loading plastic bags

Claim 1

A bag holding arrangement adapted to facilitate the loading of articles into a plastic bag selectively removable from stacks of differently sized bags, each said bag having an upwardly opening mouth and a pair of integral upwardly extending handle loops disposed on opposite sides of said mouth, said holding arrangement comprising: a pair of spaced side members having a mirror-image configuration, each said side member being formed of wire bent to form a vertical rear portion, an arm portion extending forwardly from the upper end of said rear portion, and a base portion extending forwardly from the lower end of said rear portion; said arm portion including a first upwardly extending horizontally elongated tab having a rearwardly projecting protrusion, a forwardly extending nose segment, and a downwardly and rearwardly extending wire portion having the forward end thereof connected to said nose segment and the rearward end thereof fastened to said vertical rear portion, a second downwardly depending elongated tab formed in said wire portion having a forwardly projecting protrusion and a bag-engaging surface at the rearward end of the tab; holding means interconnecting said vertical rear portions proximate the upper ends thereof for supporting a stack of bags of a predetermined size therefrom; and means interconnecting each of the forward extending base portions to provide a horizontal support surface, whereby a user is adapted to selectively place the handle loops of the topmost bag from a stack of a predetermined bag size, which when the bag is of a larger size, on a respective one of the first upwardly tabs, or alternatively when the bag is of a smaller shorter size, place the handle loops of the bag on respectively one of the downwardly depending second tabs, such that the bottom of the bag is supportable on said horizontal support surface.