This invention relates to stationery envelopes primarily intended for posting and being provided with means of identification.

The usual way of identifying the addressee, contents or other information on an envelope is by direct writing or by attachment of a label but where the information is of a confidential nature coding is often used. One common method of coding on stationery generally is by means of magnetic stripes onto which information can be applied in the form of magnetic signals which can be read by appropriate reading devices. This system is usually applied to the sheet or sheets enclosed within the enveleope and is therefore only accessible when the envelope is opened.

The object of this invention is to provide an envelope construction in which coded information can be applied to the exterior in a convenient way.

In accordance with the invention there is provided an envelope comprising front and back portions and means attaching the front and back portions together along three adjoining edges of the envelope to form a pocket, and a stripe of magnetisable material applied to an outer surface of the envelope so as to extend adjacent one of said edges, said connecting means in respect of said one of said edges connecting the front and back portions together at a position spaced from said one of said edges in a manner to prevent any contents of the pocket assuming a position underlying said stripe.

With such an arrangement, coded information can be carried on the magnet stripe which is read by passing

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the envelope through a rrader. By preventing envelope contents from assuming a position underlying the stripe, jamming of an envelope in the reader, with consequent damage to the envelopes the reader or both, is prevented.

The invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which,

Figure. 1 is a plan view of an envelope constructed in accordance with this invention,

Figure. 2 is a cross-sectional view on the line 2-2 in Fig. 1, and

Figure 3 is a plan view of another embodiment of the invention.

The envelope illustrated is formed from a single sheet of paper having a front panel 10 connected along one edge to a rear panel 11. The front panel has three flaps 12,. 13 and 14 positioned on the other three edges respectively. The two flaps 12 and 1 are folded inwardly and are glued to the front panel 11. The flap 13 is initially left open but when the envelope contents have been inserted the envelope is sealed by folding the flap 13 and securing it by adhesive in the usual way to the rear panel 11.

The flap 13 is shorter than the side of the envelope to which it is connected by a distance approximating to the width of the flap 14 at one side of the envelope. The flap 14 and the rear panel 11 are secured together by adhesive as described and also the flap 14 and the front panel 10 are secured together by adhesive over substantially the same area, thereby providing a

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connection between the front and rear panels in this area.

The three portions 10, 11 and 14 are embossed over an area indicated at 15 the embossing being towards the front panel so that on the front panel 11 there is formed a raised platform over this area 15.

To the platform thus formed there is secured a magnetisable material in the form of a stripe identified at 15.

This stripe may be made from a plurality of layers at least one of which contains magnetisable material to which can be applied signals whereby coded material is stored in the stripe in known manner.

The stripe may be applied by printing or other method and if desired more than one stripe can be applied in this area or in other areas on the envelope.

It is therefore possible to read the coded information using suitable reading devices without the necessity for opening the envelope and examining the contents. It is therefore possible to identify information concerning the contents without opening the envelope but although the information is accessible from the outside of the envelope it is nevertheless maintained confidential since it can only be read by a decoding reading device.

In the embodiment shown in Figure 3 (in which reference numerals increased by 100 have been used) the stripe 115 is provided on the flap 114 which is arranged to lie outside the rear panel 111 instead of inside it as shown in Figure 1. In this case the flap 114 is

adhesively attached to the outer surface of the back panel 111 with in turn is directly adhesively attached to the front panel in this region so that, the pocket formed does not extend behind the flap 114. In the case of the envelope shown in Figure 3 the stripe has been printed on the paper to be used in making the envelope as a continuous stripe. The stripe could, of course, be applied to the finished envelope as in Figure 1. Furthermore the envelope of Figure 1 could be made of pre-striped paper, in which case the stripe 15 would extend along both external faces of the envelope.

It will be appreciated that many variations of the constructions described above could be manufactured. The stripe could, for example, extend along the edge of the envelope defined by the fold connecting the front and rear panels, in which case these panels would be directly attached together in the region of the stripe, for example by a row of adhesive dots.