a) Field of the Invention
The present invention is concerned with an improvement to the kind of merchandise display racks known in the trade as "gondolas", which improvement essentially lies in the structure and manufacture of the posts and tie-rods acting as structural members in such racks.
b) Brief Description of the Prior Art
Gondolas are merchandise display racks that are widely used in retail stores especially food stores, to store and display the merchandises offered for sale. Such racks that are most of time disposed in island formation in the stores, basically comprise two or more vertical posts made of rigid metal, such as steel. Each post has a bottom end and a pair of front and rear surfaces formed with a plurality of vertical aligned apertures for use to detachably secure merchandise shelves through angular brackets in an overhanging fashion.
At least two and preferably more than two horizontal tie bars also made of metal, are used for rigidly interconnecting each pair of posts adjacent each other in spaced apart relationship.
The posts interconnected by the tie-bars are mounted onto the floor by means of transversal footings connected to their bottom ends and sized and positioned to hold the posts vertical even when shelves are secured thereto and loaded with merchandises to be displayed. Each footing is defined by at least one half-base having a vertical inner edge from which hooks projects, and a vertical outer edge. Each half-base is rigidly connectable to the post adjacent the bottom end thereof by insertion of its hooks into the apertures made in the front or rear surfaces of this post. When two half-bases are connected to one post, they horizontally projects away in opposite directions from the front and rear surfaces of the post and act as symmetrical stabilizers for holding this post vertical.
This basic structure is quite efficient. However, it calls for the manufacture of a plurality of structural members of different shape, namely the posts and the tie-bars which usually are of different structure depending on when they are intended to be positioned along the posts to interconnect the same. This in turn calls for different manufacturing processes (cold-forming, punching, welding . . .) which are sometimes difficult to carry out in line in a rational, time-and-cost efficient manner.