Improvements in Coin-freed Fortune Telling Apparatus.
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 17th Nov., 1899-Accepted, 17th Nov., 1900
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Coin-freed Fortune Telling Apparatus.
I, ARTHUR HAEHLE, of 46, Bautznerstrasse, Dresden, N., in the German Empire,
Merchant, 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:-
The subject of this invention is an automatic oracle or fortune-telling machine
which upon the insertion of a coin by the inquirer gives visual information,
through an aperture or window provided in its front wall and normally covered
with a sliding plate, concerning the character and past, present and future events
It need hardly be mentioned that the apparatus
of that person's life or career.
is solely intended as a medium of recreation and amusement and that its deviser
has certainly no intention of claiming accuracy for its disclosures.
The apparatus consists of a case enclosing, firstly, the usual coin-freed mech-
anism, and secondly, the mechanism required for the operation of the plates or
These plates are either secured to rollers,
tablets bearing the oracle's answers.
as hereinafter described, or arranged upon paper or cloth bands fed along by the
said rollers.
In the accompanying drawings,
Figure 1 represents the front of the apparatus closed.
Figure 2 is a side elevation of the sliding plate.
Figure 3 is a side elevation of the apparatus with part of the enclosing case
removed to expose the mechanism contained therein.
Figure 4 is a front view of a single roller, and.
Figure 5 an end view of the same.
Figure 6 is a rear view of the operative parts.
The rollers 9 are each fitted, at one end, with teeth h which are adapted to
engage the hooks k of the sliding plate d which is provided with an outwardly
projecting knob or handle d. The sliding plate d is supported between the
framer and the band or plate e, and guided by pins s projecting from the frame r,
entering the slots in the said sliding plate. The spring d² serves to restore the
sliding plate to the position of rest after use. Rigidly connected with the sliding
plate d are the shutters i which are adapted to take up their position in front
of the several window-compartments to conceal from view the answers last
delivered and still remaining behind the window.
In order to prevent the rollers, after the whole series of their plates or tablets
.have once been presented at the windows, from giving identical answers when
the same questions are repeated, the rollers are provided with unequal numbers
of teeth, by which means great variety in the manner in which a given series of
questions are answered at each successive operation, is assured.
The operation of the machine, as will probably be apparent from the mere
O perusal of the foregoing statements, is as follows:-
-:
The sliding plate d is normally supported and locked at the upper end of its
path of travel by any convenient device actuated by the coin-freed mechanism.
On inserting a coin into the machine the sliding plate d will be released and

page_text: will then be at liberty to move, so that the user of the apparatus may press the
said plate downwardly by means of the knob d¹.
Inasmuch as the shutters i, which are placed immediately behind (or within)
the window compartments, and cover the tablets or plates last inserted, are
securely connected with the sliding plate d, they also are moved in the down-
ward direction, and made to uncover the windows and to expose to view the suc-
ceeding tablets g¹, which have been moved into position by the downward move-
ment of the hooks. k connected with the said sliding plate d, and by the resulting
rotary movement of the rollers.
The moment the user, after reading the answers on the several tablets, releases
the knob d, the spring brings the sliding plate d, together with its shutters i
and hooks k, back to its position of rest, when the windows m and tablets g¹
become again concealed from view leaving the apparatus in the "closed" condition.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is:-
An automatic fortune telling machine characterized by an exposing aperture
or window in front of which tablets provided with inscriptions, are brought by
rollers set in step-by-step rotary motion, which rollers may serve either to carry
the said tablets or to feed bands of paper or other material which, in substitution
for the tablets, have the oracle's answers inscribed thereon and which rollers, in
so far as it is feasible, are provided with a dissimilar number of teeth substan-
tially as described.
Dated this 17th day of November 1899
ember
D. YOUNG & Co.,
11 & 12, Southampton Buildings, London,
Agents for the Applicant.