Decorative article

DETAILED DESCRIPTION GB-A-2125337 describes security printing of articles which bear holographic devices.
These optically variable devices are however affixed to substrates and as such can be detached, albeit with difficulty.
To prevent this the holograms are covered and printed with protective layers.
The Government of Australia issued a commemorative bank note which consisted of a plastic substrate onto which a holographic label was affixed.
While the article combined security printing beside an hologram the hologram was affixed to the security printing substrate and thus liable to detachment.
International Patent Publication No.
W091/06925 describes security printed holograms in which images, including printed images, are placed inside the holographic device, such as on the embossed plastic prior to metallisation.
This patent application allows the possibility of there being printing over an area of the hologram and partial concealment of the metallic layer for example to produce serially numbered holographic labels.
The stamping of holographic and diffractive hot blocking foils onto security documents to form holographic labels, for example, is described GB-A-2129739.
Such labels are securely bonded but nevertheless are affixed by a discrete layer adhesive.
Hot embossing foils are also described in U.
S.
Pat.
No.
4,631,222.
GB-A-2119312 describes how a plain, non-holographic metallic foil is continuously rolled against and thus transferred to a paper substrate for example to give a continuously looping pattern which continues from one document to the next on the roll.
This patent envisaged the overprinting of at least part of the plain metallic foil.
There is a need to provide security articles in which optically variable effect devices such as holograms are less liable to detachment than hitherto.
There is a need to provide more convenient manufacturing methods which would allow holographic replicas to be used more extensively.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, an article comprises a substrate which includes a structure for generating a viewable optically variable effect, the substrate being partially provided with an indicia receptive coating such that at least part of the optically variable effect remains visible