A friction feeder apparatus for handling sheets of paper of differing thicknesses includes a first plurality of laterally spaced apart transport belts positioned in underlying relation to the paper and a second plurality of laterally spaced apart separator wheels positioned in overlying relation to the paper. The transport belts are staggered with respect to the separator wheels. A sheet of paper passing through the feeder apparatus is undeflected from the top as it encounters the transport belts and is unsupported from the bottom as it encounters the separator wheels so that the sheet of paper is not held flat as it passes through the feeder but instead is forced into a wave-like, sinusoidal-like shape. In a first embodiment, the separator wheels are downstream of a fixed nip roller and in a second embodiment, the separator wheels are upstream of the fixed nip roller.