Invention problem

I don't think it was invented yet.

I would use either a cash box, or some kind of drawer. I have a reference book or two around here on various details of the old west. If I can find them . . . I'll look and see what they have.

This site, which I found via Google, seems to have some fast and easy answers.

http://www.moah.org/exhibits/archives/kaching.html

scriptwriter91 said:

My next question is: Would it be feasable to use a Cash Drawer or a Cash box in my script?

-sw91

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My question would be is the store some general store out in the middle of nowhere, or in a town like Sacremento? If the former, I would use a crude cash box, if the latter, I would use a cash drawer.

alleycat said:

My question would be is the store some general store out in the middle of nowhere, or in a town like Sacremento? If the former, I would use a crude cash box, if the latter, I would use a cash drawer.

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What Alley said, in spades.

Someone beat me to it, but here is Wikipedia's thoughts on it anyway...

Origin

The first cash register was invented by James Ritty following the Civil War. He was the owner of a saloon in Dayton, Ohio, USA, and wanted to stop employees from pilfering his profits. He invented the Ritty Model I [1]in 1879 after seeing a tool that counted the revolutions of the propeller on a steamship. With the help of John Birch, he patented it in 1883.[1]

Shortly thereafter, Ritty became overwhelmed with the responsibilities of running two businesses, so he sold all of his interests in the cash register business to Jacob H. Eckert of Cincinnati, a china and glassware salesman, who formed the National Manufacturing Company. In 1884 Eckert sold the company to John H. Patterson, who renamed the company the National Cash Register Company. John Patterson improved the cash register by adding a paper roll to record sales transactions, thereby creating the receipt.

1906, while working at the National Cash Register company, inventor Charles F. Kettering designed a cash register with an electric motor.

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scriptwriter91 said:

So wait, would a drawer that slides out with the money in it that is mounted to the bottom side of the countertop work?

Jus a thought

-sw91 Out

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The larger question is "why?" as in, why do you need a drawer that slides out? If it's integral to your plot working, then you would need to create belief in the readers/viewers that it's possible. There were certainly contraptions that would cause something to slide out in existence then -- would it make sense, however, for one to be wherever your action is taking place? What would the reasoning be? Would it make sense for the person whose shop (or whatever) it is to spend the money to get something like this?

And so on. Sometimes if you have to leap through too many hoops to get one plot turning point to work, it's a hoop or two too many, and maybe a simpler option would work better, both for you and the reader/viewer.

Also, it depends on what kind of universe you're writing in. In the "Wild, Wild West" universe, something like this would never be questioned, of COURSE it would work, because in that universe all these things existed even if the common man didn't know about them. In the "Lonesome Dove" universe, however, something like this would have to make sense for the time, place and person, or it would ring false.

scriptwriter91 said:

So you're tellin' me. Now listen to me. LOL that's just a little joke from my part time job anywho

So as long as I don't have a computer system with a robot taking the money in a western its ok to use whatever?

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LOL, I don't care if you listen to me or the others or not. You're not my kid. And no one has all the answers anyway. (Don't let that one get out, though!)

But no, that's not what I mean, at all. And, remember, my remarks are based solely on this thread and the little I can guess from it about your WIP.

I mean that you need to consider WHY you want to use that specific item -- a cash drawer that comes out automatically -- in your WIP.

It seems that what you want to use is a real cash register, which didn't exist when you've said your WIP is set. Therefore, my question is why MUST you use an automatic drawer of any kind? Why is this important to the STORY?

If that's the ONLY way a plot point will work, then you have to ask yourself if that plot point is important enough to warrant the jumping through hoops you'll need to to do in order to make that plot point plausible to your readers/viewers. If it IS, then you have to build the plausibility. If it ISN'T, or if it is but the work you'll have to go through to build said plausibility isn't worth it, then maybe you need to consider something else, another option, that will give you the ultimate same effect.

I also brought up two very distinctly different "Westerns" as examples. "Wild, Wild West" was clearly more of a fantastical than realistic setting, ergo, if YOUR WIP is set similarly, you could do an automatic cash drawer more easily. But you'd still have to have built your entire world that way, if you will.

However, if you're striving for authenticity, more like "Lonesome Dove" (arguments for historical accuracy notwithstanding, it's FAR more realistic than WWW was), then you would have to build a plausible and believable reason for this automatic cash drawer existing.

Any contraption can be built. If you're in the time of locomotives, which you are, anything that a train does you could have someone recreate differently -- smaller, larger, to do different things, etc. And so forth for anything that existed at the time.

But this does NOT mean that "anything goes". That's up to how realistic your entire work is, not just this one plot point. If you're writing as realistically as possible, then you either need to build the plausibility or you need to alter something, possibly many things, to get the effect you're going for.

There's at least two schools of thought on "rivet work" like this.

The first says that you should stick with what's come before & reuse the conventions even if they're factually wrong or even impossible.

The second says you should present every little nuance even though it's going to be jarring to any casual fan -- say, a story of the "late West" where the lone cowhand drives off a band of midnight rustlers with his Thompson .45 submachine gun, then hops into his Reo to chase down the ringleader.

Neither's wrong, but the audiences might vary.

As for the cash register: those danged things is heavy!! They weigh a chunk, cost a fair bit, take up a big piece of countertop, & don't provide added security.

What size is your store? How many customers a day? Are they mostly there for gewgaws, or a few necessaries, or do they fill up the wagon? How many square feet does the store cover? Chances are that if it's a smallish store, not on a main rail line, the grocer keeps a lockbox in back, or even makes change out of pocket.

Do your research, too. Back then, it was common to walk in, hand your list to the grocer, who'd then start putting your items into a box. In fact, everything (except recent or special or big items) might be in the back room, blocked off by the counter. And for heaven's sake, don't have your drygoods man selling meat, fresh veg, milk, eggs, etc.

Hi, everybody,
Hope you don't mind a passing stranger commenting ... This question about the cash box reminded me of a scene in a book we've got. It's illustrated with reprints of Civil War news from Frank Leslie's Illustrated news and Harper's Weekly. There's a sketch called "Paying off Teamsters in the Army of the Potomac'.

The paymaster is sitting at what looks like a light-weight desk with a high back with lots of cubby holes, stacks of envelopes and folders and it looks like he's pulling greenbacks out of a drawer in one of the cubbies. It almost looks like an old-fashioned spice cabinet, only larger, if that makes any sense. Looks like he has an assistant entering accounts in a ledger and another fellow standing guard.

Perhaps this is too early for your scene?

Hope that helps.

Ann

Welcome, Ann! You're always welcome around our campfire.

HoosierCowgirl said:

Hi, everybody,
Hope you don't mind a passing stranger commenting ... This question about the cash box reminded me of a scene in a book we've got. It's illustrated with reprints of Civil War news from Frank Leslie's Illustrated news and Harper's Weekly. There's a sketch called "Paying off Teamsters in the Army of the Potomac'.

The paymaster is sitting at what looks like a light-weight desk with a high back with lots of cubby holes, stacks of envelopes and folders and it looks like he's pulling greenbacks out of a drawer in one of the cubbies. It almost looks like an old-fashioned spice cabinet, only larger, if that makes any sense. Looks like he has an assistant entering accounts in a ledger and another fellow standing guard.

Perhaps this is too early for your scene?

Hope that helps.

Ann

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This sounds like a standard field desk to me. I've actually seen instructions for making them, though I can't remember at the moment if it was in Army Regulations or one of the privately authored instructions for company clerks books from the period. Always wanted one myself.

Cav Guy said:

This sounds like a standard field desk to me. I've actually seen instructions for making them, though I can't remember at the moment if it was in Army Regulations or one of the privately authored instructions for company clerks books from the period. Always wanted one myself.

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Thanks for the howdy, guys.

That desk does sound nifty. I s'pose it had a folding top or roll top of some sort.

Maybe an 1800s storekeeper would just keep the money in a cigar box or something similar.

Ann

HoosierCowgirl said:

Hi, everybody,
There's a sketch called "Paying off Teamsters in the Army of the Potomac'.


Ann

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Is this the pic?

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/march/teamsters.jpg

or

http://www.afroamcivilwar.org/museumstore/posterpics_largeversions/lv21_paying_teamsters.jpg

That's it! How nice to see it blown up like that!

Ann

Again, there's tons of factors. If it's an established little town where everyone knows everyone else, the cash doesn't have to be protected quite so much -- as opposed to a hardscrabble frontier town after the silver mine peters out & winter sets in. If it's busy, then there's more employees to keep an eye on the till -- if it's a one-man shop, then there's no good reason he doesn't keep all receipts in his pocket.

Invention Problem

JeanneTGC said:

The larger question is "why?" as in, why do you need a drawer that slides out? If it's integral to your plot working, then you would need to create belief in the readers/viewers that it's possible. There were certainly contraptions that would cause something to slide out in existence then -- would it make sense, however, for one to be wherever your action is taking place? What would the reasoning be? Would it make sense for the person whose shop (or whatever) it is to spend the money to get something like this?

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May a lone stranger have a dance? On the subject of the cash register, Lil' Miss JeanneTGC said it all, and purty plain, too, I might add.

On another topic ... the formation of a Western thread -- wonderful. Now can someone tell me what the final result of the poll that asked if the western genre is dead was? (did that make sense?)

And, even before I start to study the Duotrope's Digest (from yet another sub-thread in this thread) for agencies and publishers of westerns, I want to extend my deepest thanks. To date I have been able to locate only two such places. One of which responded saying they do not accept international submissions. And here I am, a real American that votes in American elections with an American bank account and paying taxes in America but happen to live very near the beaches of Queensland, Australia. Crikey!

Enough .... and thanks for being there, all ... keep up the good work

AussieBilly said:

On another topic ... the formation of a Western thread -- wonderful. Now can someone tell me what the final result of the poll that asked if the western genre is dead was? (did that make sense?)

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Yep! And, I think we decided that we (those posting here) just needed to get that one short or one novel out there that "works" and it'll be back. (That's my takeaway, anyway. )

AussieBilly said:

And, even before I start to study the Duotrope's Digest (from yet another sub-thread in this thread) for agencies and publishers of westerns, I want to extend my deepest thanks. To date I have been able to locate only two such places. One of which responded saying they do not accept international submissions. And here I am, a real American that votes in American elections with an American bank account and paying taxes in America but happen to live very near the beaches of Queensland, Australia. Crikey!

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Maybe you should put in your cover letter/email somewhere that you are an American who happens to be living in Queensland right now. May change some of their reactions. Can't hurt, at any rate.

JeanneTGC said:

Maybe you should put in your cover letter/email somewhere that you are an American who happens to be living in Queensland right now. May change some of their reactions. Can't hurt, at any rate.

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Hey, it worked for Quigley. Perhaps it'll work for you too.

That rhymed, you know.