The panthelégraph is an autograph telegraph, ancestor of the fax. Invented more than 140 years ago, it was the first fintech system  and was used to verify bank signatures. Commercially exploited in the nineteenth century in France and experimentally in other countries.

Abbot Giovanni Castelli’s panthelégraph made it possible to reproduce at a distance, by means of a telegraph line, a drawing made with a special pencil on a special support. The document is a pencil drawing with an insulating lead on a conductive aluminum foil backing. 

The analysis is carried out by alternating scanning, with a tip whose movement is regulated by a heavy pendulum. The receiver uses an electrosensitive impregnated paper.