Star trip label stripper

In a method of dispensing a succession of adhesive labels from a web of liner material to which the labels are temporarily adhered by feeding the liner with the labels thereon along a liner infeed path which leads along a first direction to a peel-back edge at a dispensing station, with the liner contacting the peel-back edge and the succession of labels each spaced from the peel-back edge by the thickness of the liner, and drawing the liner under tension over the peel-back edge and away therefrom along a liner outfeed path which leads from said peel-back edge in a second direction that is divergent from said first direction to thereby impose on the labels a tendency to continue to move in said first direction beyond said peel-back edge and thus to separate from said liner, the improvement which comprises striking a blow against the non-adhesive face of each successive label in the vicinity of the leading edge thereof, such blow being sufficiently sharp to enhance such tendency to the point where there is accomplished the separation of labels which would otherwise resist such tendency and fail to separate.