The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-01-26
THOUGHTS WORTH MONEY.

Happy thoughts, sold just as they were,
hot off the brain, and unpatented some
times have brought men fortunes. For a.
plan of making aerated water, thought
out over pipe of tobacco, Harvey
Browne got $50, GOETHE record price ever
paid for a bare and unpatented idea. 1t
was bare idea of forcing carbon1c acld
gas into water with a suggestion Of how
to do it, and it made Harvey Browne the
father of all soda water and other artl-
fetal ''fizzes'' in the world today. His
idea having been born, Browne took it
to a big beer bottling firm and offered 1T
for sale
They questioned him closely and easily
could have appropriated his idea With
out paying him a cent, but they hap
pened to be honest persons, and seeing
at once that the scheme would work,
they offered the man with the happy
thought S25 coo for his idea. But Browne
asked $4,000, and threatened to go away
and patent the idea and sell it to some
one else if his terms were not complied
with The upshot of the matter was
that Browne signed an agreement and
left the office of the firm with check
for $4,000.
For easy money it would be hard to
beat the SIS coo which a man named Nor
man Miles received for his idea of per-
British postal authorities. Before that
the stamps were printed in sheets which
had to be cut with a pair of scissors
One day while Miles was thinking about
nothing in particular it occurred to him
that perforations between the stamps
would enable them to be separated with
out the bother of using scissors. He did
not stop to patent his idea but rushed
off to the proper postoff1ce officials and
explained his idea illustrating it with a
pin and a sheet of writing paper. He
also suggested a simple device for per-
forating machine. 1t did not take a
gerius to appreciate the value of the
idea, and even the government officials
British ones at that-saw it. Miles asked
$4,000 for his idea, and, though he held
no patent, he got what he demanded, af-
ter some delay.
Twice in his life the late John Ruthin
sold bare ideas, just as they had come
into his head, for hard cash, unpatented
notions as they were, merely the in
spirations of an idle moment. he re-
ceived large sums for both of them
One was an idea for a safety valve
which is now used extensively all over
the world. If he had taken out pat
ent the royalties on his invention would
have netted him much more money, but
he preferred to sell his idea as soon as
it was born, and he got $4,000 for it. Five
years later he sold, just as it stood ir
his head, an idea for d sausage making
machine for $1,000
Huntley Webb, when. he conceived the
idea of his "facile" electric motor, rush.
ed right off and offered it for sale. He
confessed afterward that it was the feal
of being forestalled that prevented his
waiting to get the idea patented before
he sold it. He died last year worth g
comfortable fortune, but had he patented
the idea and had a smart, practical agent
to work for him, he might have been q
millionaire. AS it was, he got $45. COO fol
his naked idea, thus nearly equaling Har
Vey Brownies record. In spite of thes,
| brilliant examples, brain throbs at thous
| ands of dollars a throb are extremel!
rare and salable ideas are not born il
every brain.-NeW York Press.