Moffet Register
date: label: date made
content: 1877-1899
notes: label: Description
content: Samuel H. Moffett was a Virginia state senator who, in 1877, proposed that every liquor dealer and saloon keeper in the state use a Moffett Register (aka Moffett Bell Punch) to keep track of sales. The tax on these sales would go towards paying the interest on the public debt.
label: Description
content: This example, which which came to the Smithsonian in 1899, has six dials reading from ten to one million, and a black case marked “ALCOHOLIC / LIQUORS." The donor termed it a "Relic of the days when Virginia changed her convivialness for the privilege of recording their drinking capacity."
label: Description
content: Ref: Samuel H. Moffett and Otis Dean, “Improvement in Alarm-registers for Use in Bar-rooms, etc.,” U.S. Patent 194,951 (Sept. 4, 1877).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Chemistry
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Thomas J. Gibson
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CH.201430
label: accession number
content: 35194
label: catalog number
content: 201430
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Liquid Meter
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: frame: 4 1/2 in x 8 in x 4 1/2 in; 11.43 cm x 20.32 cm x 11.43 cm