Abstract: A mechanism for handling a ticket, as for a public transportation system or the like, in which the ticket has a known original value that is updated after each use by a printed visual readout and a magnetically recorded coded record. The mechanism receives a ticket and advances it through an initial stage in which the magnetic record is read and updated. The ticket then advances to a printer, where a single high speed stepper motor drives the ticket and the multiple character print drum, the stepped advance being in increments of character line spacing. At the appropriate line position, the advance drive is disengaged and the new value is printed while the ticket is stationary, after which the drive is engaged to eject the ticket. The action is very rapid and a ticket can be processed in considerably less than one second.