US837789A - Seal for boxes. - Google Patents

Description

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

SEAL FOR BOXES.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec. 4', 1906.

Application filed October 23, 1906. Serial No. 340,160.

To all whom it Wmy concern.-

Be it known that I, EDWARD J. BROOKS, a citizen of the United States of America, and a resident of East Orange, in the State of New Jersey, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Seals for Boxes, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to means for preventing the covers or bottoms of wooden packing cases or boxes of any size from being opened without detection, and thus to prevent the contents or part of the same from being abstracted from the boxes in transit from one point to another. There are heavy losses in many kinds of goods from boxes in transit from manufacturers to dealers and from dealers to customers.

The object of the present invention is to effectively accomplish the desired protection by a sealing device of very simple construction.

The invention consists in a novel combination of parts and in a sealing device of novel construction forming part of said combination and adapted to be sold in quantity for use by shippers.

A sheet of drawings accompanies this specification as part thereof.

Figures 1 and 2 are respectively a face view and an edge view of the sealing device or seal part, as it is hereinafter termed. Fig. 3 is a small-scale perspective view of a wooden box prepared for sealing; and Figs. 4 and 5 represent in common sections on the line A B, Fig. 1, and A B, Fig. 3, on the same scale as Figs. 1 and 2, illustrating successive stages of the sealing operation.

Like reference characters refer to like parts in all the figures.

In carrying this invention into effect a round seal part a, of suitable sheet metal, is employed within a seal-containing recess 1), adapted to be readily and quickly formed by means of an ordinary auger-bitof suitable size, and is combined with an ordinary nail 0, preferably of the wire-nail type.

The packing case or box may be of any required dimensions. An ordinary rectangular box is represented by Fig. 3. As there shown, the box for the purposes of this invention may be composed of two or more coverboards 1 and 2, side and end boards 3 and 4, and a bottom 5, having the customary lapjoints and united with each other by nails 6 or their equivalent in any known or improved manner.

To provide for sealing the box, both ends of each of the cover-boards 1 and 2 are provided with round seal-containing recesses 12, formed as above described. Each of these recesses being concentric with a nail-hole d, Fig. 4, a seal part a is dropped into each recess and a nail c is driven through the nailhole (1 into the end board 4 adjoining the same. The nail. may be driven by a hammer flush with the top of the cover and is then driven home, as in Fig. 5, by means of a suitable punch.

The seal-containing recess 1) serves not only to sink the seal part a below the outer surface of the box, so as to prevent its defacement and impairment as a sealing device by contact with the floor and with other objects, but also prevents the withdrawal of the nail c by means of a nail-puller, and it thus becomes impossible to free either end of either of the cover-boards without so marring the wood and the .seal part, either or both, as to insure detection.

The round seal part a, is designed and adapted to be made in one piece of suitable sheet metal, as aforesaid, and is constructed with a downwardly-directed sharp outer edge 1 and with a central nail-point-admitting hole 2, Fig. 1, the latter of less diameter than the shank of the nail 6, so that when the nails is driven therethrough, as in Fig. 5, said outer edge 1 is caused to embed itself in the wood, and the nail in forcing its way through the contracted central hole 2 forces the metal around said hole downward into the wood, as in Fig. 5, while at the same time the seal part becomes attached to the nail to a practically inseparable extent and prevents access to the head of the nail by pliers or like tools without so marring the seal part as to insure detection.

It is intended to seal the part or parts forming the bottom 5 of the box in the same manner as the cover-boards 1 and 2 and to seal each part at two or more points, as may be required; but ordinarily one seal at each end of each part will be sufficient to render the box reasonably secure against being tampered with without detection.

Having thus described said improvement, I claim as my invention and desire to patent under this specification 1. The combination with a wooden box having a lap-joint the outermost member of which is provided with a sufficient number of round seal-containing recesses in its outer side and a nail-hole centralwith reference to I tracted central hole adapted to admit the each recess of a round sheet-metal seal part point of a nail and to be expanded by the Within each of said recesses having a downshank of the nail and to tightly embrace the Wardly-direoted sharp outer edge adapted to i same immediately beneath the nail head 5 penetrate the Wood, and a nail driven oen- When the nail has been driven therethrough, 15'

trally through each seal part into the adj oinsubstantially as hereinbefore specified. ing box part. 2 EDWVARD J. BROOKS.

2. In a seal for boxes, a round sheet-metal Witnesses: seal part constructed with a downwardly- GEO. O. ToTTEN, [o directed sharp outer edge and With a con- GEO. R. FORD.

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