ratchet device associated with the ink ribbon box 12 the push rod 33 is slidably received within a portion 34 of the housing in such a manner that a longitudinal deviation is prevented the push rod 33 is provided at its outer end with a pin 35 which extends through an inclined slotted hole 36 of an engaging member 37 this engaging member 37 is vertically guided by pins 37 39 which are supported by the housing 11 and is provided with a leaf spring 38 which engages a ratchet wheel 39 mounted on a lug 52 of the ink ribbon box 12 a second leaf spring 41 is supported by the housing 11 and prevents reverse rotation of the ratchet wheel 39 in the direction as indicated by the arrow illustrated in fig3 from the aforementioned description it will be appreciated that a printing device according to this invention is not only characterized by small and inexpensive construction which is moreover easy to operate but will produce only a minimum of noise additionally sets of assemblies with different thicknesses can be printed without an adjustment of the force of impression furthermore the imprints will be obtained on predetermined areas of the assemblies based on the one hand on the vertical arrangement of the plate holding device thereby resulting in an automatic support of the plates after they have been inserted in the holding frame of the printing anvil and on the other hand on the precise support of the forms on the spring loaded bar 14 accurate and uniform machine readable impressions can be attained by using an ink ribbon box which use eliminates.