Automatic Stamp-Selling Machine.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 5, 1 March 1906, Page 115

Automatic Stamp-Selling Machine.

From communications received by the Frisco mail by Mr. Dickie, of the staff of the General Post Office, it would seem that the automatic stamp-sell-mg machine — the joint invention of that gentleman and Mr. H. Brown, photographer, of Upper Willis street — is going to prove a really good thing for the inventors. When Mr. Dickie visited San Francisco a few weeks ago he met a Mrs. Kermode, of Tasmania, who was so struck with the invention that she acquired the patent rights for all those countries in which it had not been protected by the inventors, and she is to use her best endeavours to have the machine taken up in America and elsewhere. In a letter received from New York, Mrs. Kermode writes that she had an interview with the Chief Postmaster of Canada, at Ottawa, and he had been greatly impressed with the possibilities of the machine. It appeared to him to be complete, yet simple, it could be manufactured at a nominal cost, and there was apparent impossibility of its getting out of order. Another letter, dated December ioth, says that the Minister had written, stating that the Canadian Government was willing to order a hundred machines if they could be manufactured cheaply. The writer said they were getting an estimate, and if the Canadian Government accepted, and Mr. Dickie agreed to the offer, it meant everything to the life of the machine. The letter further stated that the Dominion officials had tested the machine, and were convinced that it was a really fine invention. Negotiations were also proceeding with the head officials at Washington, where further success was expected The stamp- selling machine m question was exhibited in the portico of the General Post Office in Wellington for some time, where it dispensed penny stamps with great promptitude on the penny-in-the-slot principle. It proved a very great convenience to the public — particularly after office hours, and on Sundays — and very many would have liked to have seen such a machine peimanently installed.

It would be most interesting were some motorist with plenty of time at his disposal, to keep a strict account for six months of his runs, their complete cost, and all details, and then draw up a contrasting itemised bill of what his trips would have come to had he and his passengers travelled first class by rail. | '