IMPROVEMENTS IN RECEPTACLES FOR COIN OR OTHER VALUABLE ARTICLES
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Samuel Benjamin at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 8th
January 1868. A communication from abroad by William
Benjamin, of Montreal, in Canada.
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I, SAMUEL BENJAMIN, of Lancaster Road, Bayswater, in the County
of Middlesex, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN RECEPTACLES FOR COIN OR OTHER VALUABLE
ARTICLES," communicated to me from abroad by William Benjamin, of
Montreal, in Canada, to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to receptacles for coin or other valuables, and
it has for object to prevent the felonious abstraction of their contents
and to give notice of surreptitious attempts.
The Invention consists in certain mechanical arrangements applied
to or combined with such receptacles for the said purposes. The
receptacle is provided with a number of moveable blocks or pieces
operated by keys, slides, or finger pieces (one to each block), and en
each block rests a bar or rod, herein-after for convenience of description

page_text: called "bit," raised and lowered by the motion of the blocks. When
raised these bits engage in a socket and fasten the receptacle. According
to the position of the blocks some will raise their bits and others depress
them when actuated by their respective keys or slides, therefore, when
some of the blocks are disposed beforehand so that their bits will be
raised, and others so that their bits will be lowered, the depressing or
unfastening action cannot be performed by any one who does not
know which slides to actuate. The action of endeavouring to pull
open the receptacle when the proper bits are not depressed causes a
tongue on an arm raised by the bits to strike a bell or gong or sound
an alarm.
I proceed to explain more particularly how this may be carried into
effect.
A number of blocks are used, each being of triangular section or
having two bevelled or sloping upper sides and a straight base. In this
base at a distance from the centre of its length is an orifice. Hence
there is a part of the base of greater length on one side of the orifice
than on the other. Each orifice engages a pin or stud on a key or
slide operated from the outside. There is one such key or slide to each
.block. On each block rests a bar or piece bevelled at bottom and
grooved at top, and called by me a bit. I set the apparatus thus:-
Suppose there are five blocks, though there may be more or less, I take
one, two, or more of the blocks, say, for example, Nos. 2 and 5, and
alter their position, that is to say, turn them round endwise, so that
when their orifices are engaged with the studs the longer part of the
base is towards the front of the receptacle, while all the other blocks,
say, Nos. 1, 3, and 4, have the shorter part towards the front. The bits
are then dropt on the blocks, the direction of the bevels of bits Nos. 2
and 5 being reversed to those of Nos. 1, 3, and 4. The bits 2 and 5
will thus be raised above bits 1, 3, and 4, and will take into a socket
at top provided with a hinged, articulated, pivoted, or spring flap,
and will thereby fasten the receptacle. An arm on a hinged piece
passes along the grooves of the raised bits, and a tongue on such
arm is so placed as to come in contact with a bell or alarm. If a
thief attempt to open the receptacle the raised bits will prevent him
from doing so, and the pulling action will cause the tongue on the
hinged bar to sound the bell, gong, or alarm, the tongue being raised

page_text: by the raised bits. But when the person who has set the apparatus
desires to open the receptacle he actuates the keys Nos. 2 and 5,
and thereby owing to the arrangement of the bevels he depresses bits
Nos. 2 and 5 and opens the receptacle, the tongue clearing the bell or
alarm.