To provide a thermal transfer recorder capable of preventing leakage of personal information without lowering a processing speed by concurrently performing printing on recording paper and welding of a used thermal transfer ribbon.

Pressure/vibration applying rollers 7a, 7b are brought into contact with an external circumference of a thermal transfer ribbon 2 by a roller drive motor 13, vibration from a vibration generator 8 is applied to an ink removed portion of the used thermal transfer ribbon 2, and then the vibration applied portion is welded to a resin of an already wound ink ribbon substrate. The welded wound ribbon is not able to be unwound. When the wound ribbon is forcedly unwound, the ribbon is broken so that the printed results (inverted images) are not able to be deciphered.

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