The present time stamp eliminates the usual hammer and solenoid with their impact noise. Instead, a carriage is mounted for reciprocating travel along the print wheels, and an impression roller carried by the carriage serves to press successive parts of a document against the print wheels. The desired print is thus obtained by means of a quiet rolling action rather than by a noisy hammer impact. There is smooth acceleration and deceleration of the carriage, thereby further avoiding noise and vibration. There are print wheels for date, month, year and the time in hours and minutes. Most of the print wheels are moved by pawl and ratchet mechanism. A timing motor drives a cam and cam follower to operate the pawl, and the cam configuration causes smooth acceleration and deceleration of the pawl movement, which again contributes to quiet operation. The time print wheels are provided with separate readout discs. These are made of sheet material and are progressive in diameter to expose readout numerals on the outer faces of the discs near their periphery. The time print wheels have concentric hollow shafts each extending axially to its readout disc. Additional print wheels print the date, the month, and the year.