An Improvement relating to the Three-balls Sign employed to Distinguish Pawnbrokers' Shops or Places of Business.
Year: 1893

page_text: Date of Application, 27th June, 1893
Complete Specification Left, 11th Dec., 1893-Accepted, 13th Jan., 1894
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
An Improvement relating to the Three-balls Sign employed to
Distinguish Pawnbrokers' Shops or Places of Business.
I, FRANK WITT, of 24 Cumberland Street, Bristol, Pawnbroker, do hereby
declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
This invention relates to the well-known three-balls sign employed by pawn-
brokers to indicate their shops or places of business. It consists in making the
said sign luminous so as to be readily distinguished in the dusk or at night.
Luminosity may be effected by the employment of globes of glass or other suitable
sufficiently transparent substance; the globes being illuminated from within by the
flame of an ignited gas jet, or of a candle, or by an electric lighting incandescent
carbon filament, or by oil, or other source of light. Or, the globes may be hollow
or solid balls, of wood or other suitable substance, coated with luminous paint or
the like. The arrangement of the balls with respect to each other remains the
same as heretofore, and, as aforesaid, this invention consists in making them
luminous.
Dated this 26th day of June 1893.
NICHOLAS WATTS,
Chartered Patent Agent.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
An Improvement relating to the Three-balls Sign employed to
Distinguish Pawnbrokers' Shops or Places of Business.
I, FRANK WITT, of 24, Cumberland Street, Bristol, Pawnbroker, do hereby
declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
This invention has reference to the well-known sign of three-balls adopted by
pawnbrokers to indicate their shops or places of business.
The invention consists in making the balls of the sign luminous so that they are
rendered readily visible at night or in the dusk.
The means employed to make the balls luminous may vary. Under one arrange-
ment, the balls consist of globes of glass or other suitably transparent or sufficiently
transparent substance illuminated from within by a flame derived from an ignited
gas jet. Under another arrangement the globes are modified oil lamps.
Or they
may be illuminated by means of electricity passed into a carbon filament as in
electric lamps.
Or, the balls may be solid or hollow spheres coated with luminous paint or the
like. The disposition and arrangement of the balls with respect to each other
remains the same as heretofore, the feature of novelty constituting this invention
lying in making the balls luminous.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is :-
In the well-known pawnbrokers' sign, rendering the three-balls thereof luminous

page_text: either by means of a gas or oil flame, or by electricity, luminous paint or other
means, substantially as hereinbefore described.
Dated this 8th day of December 1893.
NICHOLAS WATTS,
Chartered Patent Agent.