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Currency sorter

Currency sorter description/claims

This application is a division of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/243,268 filed Oct. 4, 2005.

The present invention relates to a currency sorter, and more particularly, to the one that serves to take in mixed currency deposited in sheets, discriminate, sort them out denominations, face values, or versions, put them into stacking units, and bundle a predetermined number of the notes.

In financial companies and organizations, a currency sorter is generally used to facilitate organizing and handling deposited currency notes. When a bunch of currency notes of normal and unfit conditions and of various face amounts together are deposited (normal notes are referred to as “fit notes” hereinafter while “unfit notes” means those which are significantly fatigue due to grime and breakage), such a currency sorter serves to sort the currency notes according to their respective denominations and fit/unfit conditions and then bundle a hundred of the notes, for example, with a band.

A prior art sorter of the similar type can handle at most the currency notes of only three face values of 1,000 yen, 5,000 yen, and 10,000 yen, for instance, and the typical sorter is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 2597752 ( Patent Document 1).

The Patent document 1 describes a sorter that includes the external stacking units for the currency notes of the above-identified face values and two built-in stacking units. When odd notes which are fractions of a predetermined number of the currency notes are still left in the stacking units subsequent to bundling the last of a hundred of them, the stacking units are eventually evacuated by removing the odd notes.

In the currency sorter disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2003-141606 ( Patent Document 2), data such as a name of the financial company or organization, a branch office number, a date of handling, and the like are generally printed on the bundling band of individual bundles of the currency notes, and it is processed that a serial number is given to each bundle to specify it.

The Patent Document 2, namely, discloses a manner in which a printing means is used to imprint process information data showing how the bundle of the currency notes have been processed in each handling and processing units. Specifically, the printed process information data gives information about whether the bundle of the notes are derived from an external stacking units or from a built-in stacking units and/or information about whether they are bundled notes to be released or to be stacked.

The Patent Document 2 also discloses a manner in which the printed process information data on the bundle of the currency notes is so specific as to give information about time when the bundle was processed. This permits a staff member to track the time when the bunch of the notes were bundled, from the printed letters on the bundling band. Additionally, the invention also teaches that the bundling band contains a printed data on an operator to give definite information about who was in charge of processing the bundle of the notes.

However, it is an annoying task to evacuate a fraction of the predetermined number of the currency notes from the stacking unit. Actually, the operator, after opening a front door of the sorter by a hand, must peep into the sorter to seek for the currency notes left in the stacking unit and then thrust his or her arm through a narrow clearance around the door to grasp and take out the notes.

On the other hand, if the various process information data were put on the bundling band, it is difficult to diagnose various malfunctions caused during the bundling.

Such malfunctions apt to occur during the bundling are often resulted from some troubles caused in the previous stage during putting the currency notes in stacking. For instance, it is empirically known regarding the frequently caused bundling failure that the currency notes have often their corner bent due to a switch nail in the course of conveying them into the stacking units, and/or an organizing mechanism fails to put the notes into an orderly heap in the stacking units, either case of which results the currency notes in being stacked so awkwardly as to lead to unsatisfactory results of the bundling.

If it can be supposed from the bundling band how the bundling failure occurred due to the currency notes lousily stacked in stacking, it is still unknown which stacking unit is the place that developed the bundling failure, and this makes a diagnosis of the malfunction difficult.

In a sorter with means adapted to switch a sorting manner between sorting out new and old versions of the currency and bundling the mixed currency notes without discrimination of the versions, one cannot tell any specific bunch is of the mixed currency notes till all the notes in the bunch are checked. In the case that all but one in the bunch are the notes of the new version, since the setting contents cannot be known, it is hard to track how the single note of the old version was immixed and also hard to presume if it is as a result of the selected sorting manner or rather of failure in the sorting, or of the existence of some bugs in administrative software program. This kind of trouble is caused not only in handling the mixed currency of the new and old versions but in the case of a sorter with the discriminatively switching means for sorting out the fit and unfit conditions to bundle them in separate bundles or bundling the mixed notes together.

The present invention is made to overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages, and accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a currency sorter that facilitates retrieving and returning a fraction of a predetermined number of currency notes left unbundled and that also facilitates diagnosing failure in the bundling.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a currency sorter comprising:

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