One of the first jobs on a ticket agent’s shift was to set the date wheels to the day's date. In busy offices, the agent would put on rubber gloves for the messy job of changing the ink ribbon every few months.
The die is a piece of carefully machined bronze, engraved with the station name and the name of the railroad, in reverse. Smaller stations had one validator and one die. At larger stations, or in stations where there were multiple agents working in shifts, and many validators in use, each agent had his or her own die, with a letter or number corresponding to the person to whom the die was assigned. So important were the actual dies, that they were locked in the station safe when not in use. In many cases, the dies were destroyed if the station closed or railroad ceased passenger service. In a few cases, the dies were presented to retirees as "gifts" or were sold or given to collectors who sought them. Many of those were "squirreled away" and have only emerged as collectibles in recent years. Today, railroad station validators, with dies, are highly-prized pieces of railroadiana.
