IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING THE EXCHANGE' OF GOLD COIN FOR SILVER OR SMALL CHANGE IN BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Austin at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 10th June 1876.
THOMAS AUSTIN, of Park Terrace, Regent's Park, in the County of Middlesex,
Licensed Victualler. "IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING THE EXCHANGE'
OF GOLD COIN FOR SILVER OR SMALL CHANGE IN BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS."
The apparatus which forms the subject of the present Invention is applicable to
and useful for all businesses, such as hotel keepers, licensed victuallers, and others,
where much change for gold coin is required to be given in conducting the
business.
The object of the apparatus is to prevent mistakes being made in giving change
for gold coins, as for instance, giving change for a sovereign when only half a
sovereign has been tendered and taken. The apparatus also prevents the carrying
on of a system of fraud which is often practised on licensed victuallers and others,
and is known as "ringing the changes." This kind of fraud is effectually prevented.
by the present Invention, as any gold coin when taken is placed in the apparatus
on a lever, which when pressed down by the coin drops the latter into a drawer,
and at the same time instantly returns the proper value in silver coin, and also
strikes a bell as a warning that change has been taken.
The mistake of giving the change for a sovereign for half a sovereign cannot
occur without collusion or by culpable negligence, as the silver change for each coin
is in separate and distinct compartments, and no coin can affect the mechanism of
the compartment to which it does not properly belong.
The apparatus is constructed in the form of a cabinet provided with a chamber
which is enclosed by a door, and secured by a lock and key. In this chamber are
two vertical tubes open at top, and having a long vertical slot made from top to
bottom in front. In these vertical tubes are piled one on another any convenient
number, say, 10 small cylindrical vessels, in which the silver change is placed, each
vessel containing the proper change for a sovereign or half a sovereign, as the case
may be, all the vessels with the change for the one kind of coin (say, a sovereign)
being placed in one tube, and all the vessels with the change for the other coin, say,
half a sovereign, being placed in the other tube. Each of these cylindrical vessels
is provided with a square stud, which projects through the vertical slot of the
containing tubes, and when at the bottom of this slot rests upon a shoulder at the
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page_text: top of a second but shorter vertical slot at the lower end of the tube, but a little
out of the line of the other and longer slot.
In front of each of these vertical containing tubes is mounted a weighted lever
which carries a spring click or catch piece, which when the lever is turned on its
centre of motion bears against the side of the projecting stud of the lowermost
cylindrical vessel and pushes it out of the top vertical slot into the entrance of the
lower one, down which the vessel will immediately drop on to an inclined spring,
which will throw it forward on to a shelf in front of the apparatus, and in so doing
will actuate a short lever, which will strike a bell or alarum.
The outer or longer end of the weighted lover of each compartment extends
under a slit or opening in a shelf which covers a small drawer. The slit or opening
on one side of the apparatus is just large enough to allow a sovereign to pass
through into the drawer beneath, but the slit on the other side will only allow
half a sovereign to pass through. Now when change for either gold coin is required
the coin to be changed is placed edgewise in the slit of its particular compartment
and is pressed down, so as to force down the end of the weighted lever; by so
doing the spring catch on the latter will come against the square stud of one of the
cylindrical vessels containing the change and will push it sideways out of the long
slot into the short one, so that it may drop down and be delivered, as already
explained. It should be further explained that in order that the gold coin may be
dropped into the drawer the cylindrical change vessel will in its descent come
against a stud projecting from the side of the weighted lever and will force the
same further down, so as to give space or room for the coin to drop out of and clear
of the slit.
When the change vessel is discharged from the apparatus the weighted lever will
by the weight on its inner end be brought back into its normal position, and in so
doing the spring click or catch on the lever will pass under the projecting square
stud of the next cylindrical change vessel, so as to come again into the position
to act on the latter at the proper time.
When all the change vessels have been discharged a weighted catch pivotted to
the front of the slotted vertical tube will drop down on to the top of the weighted
lever in the upper side of which teeth or notches are. cut for the purpose. The
catch will thus prevent the lever from being pushed down, but when the cylindrical
vessels are again introduced into the slotted tube they will drop on to the tail of the
weighted catch and will lift its other end out of the teeth of the weighted lever,
which will then be free to work again.
The apparatus may, if desired, be provided with a balance for weighing, measuring,
and otherwise testing the goodness of the coin.
As the cylindrical vessels are delivered from the apparatus and are emptied of
the change they contain they may be placed on shelves provided for the purpose at
the sides of the apparatus and there remain until again filled ready to be again
placed in their respective tubes.