Sheet receiving and storage apparatus

A sheet-receiving and storage apparatus comprising a housing having an entrance opening via which sheets can be fed one by one into its interior, an open-bottomed magazine releasably connected to said housing via said open bottom for receiving sheets from said housing in the same sequence and storing them as a stack, a sheet advancing mechanism for causing sheets entering said housing to advance to a rest position with their upper portions within said magazine and their trailing end portion extending through said open bottom into said housing, sheet supporting means normally disposed in a position underlying the trailing edges of a plurality of said sheets in said rest position and thereby supporting a stack of such sheets in face to face relationship in said rest position, a mechanism for elevating said sheet supporting means upwardly from its normal position thereby to raise the supported sheet stack bodily into the magazine, stack retaining means operative for retaining the raised stack of sheets in the magazine against the action of gravity after retraction of said sheet supporting means to its normal position, and closure means for light-tightly closing the bottom of said magazine after such retraction.