The New Dickie-Brown Stamp Seller.

Progress, Volume III, Issue 9, 1 July 1908, Page 320

The New Dickie-Brown Stamp Seller.

In our issue of May 1907, we described the Dickie - Brown automatic stampseller, and remarked incidentally that from the various accounts received, a great future awaited this ingenious device. As most of our readers are aware, the inventors are two young'gWelh'ng-

tonians who have been so successful in their exploitation of the stamp-seller that at the present time we learn of a company registered in London with a capital of £70,000, co-tempor-ary with the formation of a corporation, having offices in the Metropolitan Life Buildings, in

New York, with a capital of 1500,000. At the present moment the machine is on trial at the New York Post Office, and it has also undergone a severe test at the General Post Office, Melbourne, where many thousands of stamps were recently issued to the public during the course of six days.

The chief improvement in the new machine over the one previously described in these columns,liesin the adoption of a handleless system of releasing the stamp— the mere insertion of a penny in the slot automatically causing delivery of the stamp. Other improvements are demonstrated in the extreme delicacy of the mechanism, which enables it to reject, not only coins dissimilar to those intended for use, but even the right coins which through wear, are unsuitable for the purposes of the stamp-seller. There being no handle to lift, as in the old design, simplicity in the working of the machine is brought to the highest pitch, and the danger of mistakes, or its being tampered with is practically removed. The New York Tribune in a recent issue states "that three of the machines were to be placed in the corridor on the ground floor of the General Post Office, in order that they might undergo a thirty days' test. One of these machines contains a one cent stamp, another a two-cent stamp, and the third, one of the five-cent denomination. The new stamp-seller, which was selected from thirtyfive submitted at Washington, is 14 xll x 11. To extract the stamp from the one-cent machine the coins must be inserted in the slot and likewise the nickel is the only coin that will enter the machine containing the slot of the five-cent stamp. To obtain the twocent stamp it will be necessary to insert two cents one at a time, first releasing the lever ;

Have you any friends— at home op abroad— to whom you would like us to send a specimen copy of " PROGRESS"? If so, send their names and addresses to the Manager, 256 Lambton Quay, Wellington. He will, on receipt, forward a copy or copies of this issue, Post Free.

but no stamp will protrude from the aperture designed for that purpose until the weight of the second cent is added. The stamps are handed out from rollers, and the machines are designed to contain rolls of 2,500 stamps. The perforations between the stamps are relied on to prevent the purchaser getting more stamps, or getting them oftener than he should." The Tribunt concludes its article by references to the low cost of manufacture, and the excellence of the invention as a whole. Messrs Salter, the famous scale makers of Birmingham, are the sole manufacturers of the Dickie-Brown stamp-seller in the United Kingdom. Since the above was written, Mr. Dickie has received cable advice to the effect that the three machines in the lobby of the New York Post Office have most successfully passed through the Government test, and that a recommendation has been forwarded to the Senate, urging their immediate use in suburban and congested post offices.

The first attempt to utilise the automobile on the battlefield is about to be made in Morocco in a newly-invented automobile mitrailleuse. This has a oO h.p Panhard chassis, unarmoured, on which a gun is mounted on a pivot in the centre. The officer and chaufteur are placed in front and two artillerymen in the rear The gun can be trained in any direction. The new automobile is under the command of Captain Genty, head of the military automobile park at Vincennes It has arrived at Oran already and has left for the front.