APPARATUS TO BE USED IN CONNECTION WITH MONEY TILLS FOR REGISTERING OR RECORDING THE AMOUNT OF MONEY TAKEN
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George Absoll at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 16th September 1880.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN
GEORGE ABSELL, of 157, Queen's Crescent, Kentish Town.
APPARATUS TO BE USED IN CONNECTION WITH MONEY TILLS FOR REGISTERING OR
RECORDING THE AMOUNT OF MONEY TAKEN."
This Invention of improvements in money tills for registering the takings
consists in a set of keys or stops, actuated by the person in charge of the till, acting
upon mechanism, by which the amounts to be recorded can quickly and successively
be registered and shown on dials.
The keys or stops are made either as pianoforte keys or accordion keys, each one
bearing the numerical value of the coin to be registered; they may be of such value
as the different kinds of coin require.
In the case of small values of British coins, I arrange the stops or keys 1, 2, 3,
for farthings; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, for pence. 1 to 20 may be arranged
for shillings, or even for pounds, or they may be arranged for fractional parts of a
shilling or pound, as 1, 1, and so on. The dials are arranged one or more for
farthings, one or more for shillings, one or more for pounds; or by slightly
complicating the mechanism the whole may reach consecutively £ s. d., and fractions
of a penny.
Bowls of change are provided in the till, and a slit for inserting the money taken,
which may or may not be provided with an alarm sounded by the passage of the
money, but this is not part of the Invention; an alarm may also be mounted in
connection with the keys as each one is struck.
The whole apparatus may be mounted in any convenient manner according to the
requirements of the business.
Its action in its simple form is thus:-Supposing an article sold for 3'/,d., and
the purchaser pay one sixpence, the shopman places the sixpence in the money slit,
down which it passes to a locked receptacle; the shopman then takes 2/d. from the
bowls of change, and registers the taking of 3/d. by means of the apparatus in
this way-He depresses the button stop or key on which is engraved or marked
the figure 3 or 3 pence; the act of moving or depressing the key or stop moves a
ratchet wheel in connection therewith, and its axle moves the dial representing a
Prins 1

page_text: taking of 3d.; the like action on the figure 2 stop of the farthings represents
on another dial that '/, a penny has been taken and the balance of change left,
and the dial record shows that the amount of 3d. has been taken and added to
the till.
The connection between the stops or keys and the dials may be made by various
mechanical means.
One arrangement is the following:-Each key or stop at each depression or
action by means of a pall acts on a ratchet wheel, the wheel itself being keyed on
to an axle, each stop or key having its own ratchet wheel, and all keyed on to the
axle; the ratchet wheels are so placed that they represent by their movements the
corresponding amounts on the dial placed at the end of this axle by means of an
index or pointer; thus the dial having 12 figures representing pence, the index will
be moved from zero to 1 when the stop 1 is depressed or acted on; 4, when
the stop 4 is acted on; 12 when the stop 12 is acted upon; the index wheel
having made one revolution, actuates the next indox wheel representing 20 shillings
1/20 part of a revolution; this again having completed its revolution actuates the next
index wheel, which represents for each unit of its dial £1, and so on.
The ratchet wheels are in this case all fixed on the same axle, the pall on the
stops allowing them to pass when acted on by the higher number; each ratchet
-wheel--is-therefore-divided_differently, and multiplying gear may be added if
necessary in the case where it is inconvenient to require more range of motion;-
or curved levers may be used.
In another arrangement each ratchet wheel-is-on-a-separate.axis,.each leading to
the dial-by-a-separate-rango-of-gearing, so that whilst in action all the other ratchet
wheels are not affected by the movement.
In place of the ratchet wheels acted on by the depressing keys, the keys may act
on racks to act on the edges of geared wheels in place of the ratchets, the geared
wheels being fixed on the axle, and the index wheels may have figures on which
the results may be shown, or the dials may be made for some of the figures not to
be read by the dial passing partially behind a mask.
In the more complicated set of keys, each key representing fractions of a shilling
or pound, the principle of action is the same, but the divisions of the wheels are
made differently to accord with the altered divisions of the shilling or pound.
In one arrangement I mount a horizontal or vertical disc and arrange the keys
round it; the depression of any one by a helical web on the shaft of the stop
actuating the disc so much as required to give the corresponding reading on the dial
connected by suitable gearing to the disc.
The helical web on the shaft of cach stop may also actuate a horizontal or vertical
shaft with a to and fro motion, which, acting on the dial, records the movement
of the stop and its corresponding value; in this case the stops or keys are arranged
in rows.