Spirit duplicator

A spirit duplicator (also referred to as a Rexograph or Ditto machine in North America, Banda machine in the UK, Gestetner machine in Australia) is a printing method invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld that was commonly used for much of the rest of the 20th century. The term "spirit duplicator" refers to the alcohols that were a major component of the solvents used as "inks" in these machines.[1][2][3] The device coexisted alongside the mimeograph.

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History of printing
Techniques Woodblock printing 200 Movable type 1040 Intaglio (printmaking) 1430 Printing press c. 1440 Etching c. 1515 Mezzotint 1642 Relief printing 1690 Aquatint 1772 Lithography 1796 Chromolithography 1837 Rotary press 1843 Hectograph 1860 Offset printing 1875 Hot metal typesetting 1884 Mimeograph 1885 Daisy wheel printing 1889 Photostat and rectigraph 1907 Screen printing 1911 Spirit duplicator 1923 Dot matrix printing 1925 Xerography 1938 Spark printing 1940 Phototypesetting 1949 Inkjet printing 1950 Dye-sublimation 1957 Laser printing 1969 Thermal printing c. 1972 Solid ink printing 1972 Thermal-transfer printing 1981 3D printing 1986 Digital printing 1991
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Spirit duplicators were used mainly by schools, churches, clubs, and other small organizations, such as in the production of fanzines, because of the limited number of copies one could make from an original, along with the low cost (and corresponding low quality) of copying.