This is an assortment of Park-O-Meter parking meters. They were manufactured by the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Company. The founder of this company, Carl C. Magee, is recognized as the first person to receive a patent for a paying parking meter. His patent was issued in 1938. Magee’s invention of the parking meters was the result of [...]

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These photos are of the restoration process we went through with a fire department call box. It came to us in pretty bad shape and required sandblasting, repair work, wiring and repainting. The manufacturer is unknown, but the style strongly resembles that of Gamewell fire boxes of the 1940s and 1950s. Gamewell Corp. of Massachusetts [...]

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We know that this is a Vendo V-240 case vending machine, but have not seen any more information on this machine. It looks like a model designed specifically for factories and other large places and was probably produced in very small numbers. It was a very large machine, capable of dispensing 10 cases of soda, [...]

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These are photos of a U.S. mailbox that we restored some years ago. It dates to the late 1950s or some time in the early to mid-1960s. The manufacturer is unknown, but the style of the box is very much like the early designs conceived of by Postmaster David C. Owens in the early 1900s. [...]

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These photos illustrate a neat little bit of Coca-Cola history. Each gives a step-by-step instruction to their truck drivers for the proper delivery of bottled Coca-Cola to a customer’s vending machine. It’s very interesting to see the procedures of the time, as well as the setting and other vending devices that were used. Note the [...]

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The first police call boxes were created in 1883 for the city of Washington, D.C. They made it possible for both the public and the police to contact the local police station in the event of an emergency. The idea quickly caught on across the U.S. and call boxes were installed in other large cities. [...]

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