Pa′per Col′lar.
One made from paper in imitation of linen.
Before the advent of the factitious
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article, made as an object of merchandise and so much worn, collars were occasionally made of paper, either as by Lord Byron, who affected a collar of peculiar shape, somewhat on the sailor pattern, or by mountebanks and wandering minstrels of the colored persuasion.
The festive collars of “Brudder bones” and his partner on the left wing were exaggerated turn-downs or chokers made from cardboard.
The first patent on a collar concerned its shape, and is somewhat curiously described.
It was of fabric, and was called the “Belvidera” collar, patent to Cantelo and
Kerrison, November 19, 1833.
“The band has a breadth equal to the length of the wearer's neck.
Its lower edge is cut curving down in the center, to cover the cricoid cartilage and the thyroid gland, and curving upward on each side to avoid pressing the clavicle and the sternocleido-mastoideus muscle.
The upper edge of the band proceeds upward on each side from the center in a line corresponding with the inclination upward of the lower jawbone to a point under the angle thereof, and thence downward at a nearly equal angle, so as to avoid pressure of the mastoid process of the temporal bone.
A small oval piece of a size according with the parts to be fitted is cut out of the center of the upper edge of the band, so as to give room for the angle of the thyroid cartilage or pomum Adami.”
(Nothing like being precise!)
In 1854,
Walter Hunt, after his unsuccessful suit with
Howe in the matter of the
sewing-machine, confidently asserted to an intimate friend, “I will make a machine which will imprint a stitch more perfect than that of the
sewing-machine.”
The paper collar with an imitation stitch made by an indented tool was the result.
Long experiments upon paper, its combinations with cloth and combined fabrics attached by means of paste, followed.
The article he put upon the market consisted of thin white cotton muslin, coated upon both sides with a very thin white paper.
The face was enameled and polished by calendering.
The collar was cut out in several pieces, after the manner of the old cheekpiece standing collar, being in every respect similar, except in material and stitches.
The collar was made, like its linen predecessor, in three pieces, united by eyelets, and was fastened by strings.
It was coated with colorless, transparent, water-proof varnish.
In 1856, he united two thicknesses of cotton cloth, bleached, sized, and calendered, and fashioned into collars.
He was also the first to produce a substitute for the linen collar which had the necessary rigidity, imitation stiffening embossed thereon, and holes punched therein, forming a merchantable article.
In 1857-59,
W. E. Lockwood, having purchased the effects of
Hunt, added the farther improvement of producing a paper-faced fabric having embossed upon its surface, by means of an electrotype die taken from the fabric itself, an exact imitation of the warp and woof of the fabric, and also of the stitches which constituted its embroidered pattern.
This ornamented surface is produced upon all paper collars now in the market.
Lockwood also printed fanciful designs on the face of collars, in imitation of calico fabrics.
In 1863, the button-holes, which had formerly been simply punctured, were reinforced by cloth patches by an English maker.
In 1863,
Gray of
Boston rolled a garrote collar from a single piece of paper, so as to make the standing lappel flare from the neck.
He also turned a Byron collar upon a defined curved line, so that the outer portion would have the larger curve, and to avoid puckering the material, and also to provide for the neck-tie.
Evan, in the same year, improved the paper for collars by constructing it of long-fibered stock.
Lang, in 1866, made paper collars and cuffs in imitation of lace.
In the same year,
Alden made them of the proper flaring form direct from pulp.
Lockwood, in 1869, embossed coarse cotton sized cloth by means of linen cloth under pressure.
Paper collars are made in several ways: —
1. They are cut out of piles of sheets, in the same manner as envelopes, by means of a properly shaped knife in a platen press; the resulting blanks are embossed, button-holed, folded, and curved for the neck by other machines.
2. The collar is cut, button-holed, and creased for folding by passing through a pair of rotary compound cutters and dies.
3. The collar is made by machines which automatically complete the collar for wear from a web of paper.
A good example of this is
Snow's machine.
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Snow's paper-collar machine. |
Fig. 3522 is a view of
Snow's patent of 1865.
The paper is intermittingly fed forward by rollers the width of a collar before each descent of the platen, which carries, arranged in proper relative position, (1) a set of end knives and end and middle buttonhole punches, all adjustable to cut different-sized collars; (2) a die having serrated teeth to emboss imitation stitches, which is detachable; and (3) a knife, also adjustable, the front and rear edges of which may be of different curves, for cutting the upper and lower edges of the collar.
The bed has corresponding intaglio cutting-dies and a duplicate embossing-die, so as to ornament both sides of the collar.
As the ends and button-holes are being cut for one collar, that next in advance is being embossed with stitches, while the forward one is severed from the sheet and slides down the inclined table between end guides until it rests against the stop
b′. In this position it is struck by the foldingblade
G and pushed through a slot, resting on a
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shelf until it is carried endwise out of the machine by the belt
K between it and one of the pressingrolls
c, which curves it and completes it for wear.
In finishing the blanks, in lieu of several machines performing individual operations, a machine made by
Denison carries the blank through the machine, finishing it at successive stages.
The proper points on the collar are moistened; patches are cut from glutenized cloth strips, and pressed on the moistened spots; through these reinforced points the button-holes are punctured; the crease for folding is indented; the embossed stitching is impressed, and the collars ejected.
At the present time,
Denison and Snow have in operation machines which cut the blanks from webs of paper without the slightest loss of stock; while Snow also produces by a novel machine nearly all of the combined cloth and paper used in the collar trade at the present time.
The principal manufactories are at
Springfield and
Boston, Mass., New York, and
Philadelphia.
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Paper-coloring machine. |
