Graphotype (machine)

Graphotype was a brand name used by the Addressograph-Multigraph Company for its range of metal plate embossing machines.

[1] The machines were originally used to create address plates for the Addressograph system and mark military style identity tags and other industrial nameplates.

The machines came in a number of variants with sliding, hand wheel or keyboard selected letters.

These same machines also found use in marking other nameplates and rating plates in industry and for this an embossed (raised letters in the style found on contemporary credit cards) marking style was preferred for ease of reading and maintaining a flat surface on the back of the plate.

Military tags moved over to this style when the imprinting use was deprecated in the late 1960s and new machines would only be supplied as embossing units as the address plate market had been taken over by the computer revolution.