The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Bowling Pin Setting Device, patented by John H. Boyd of Barberton, Ohio, in 1906. Before the advent of fully automatic pin-setting devices, pinsetters were boys or young men employed by bowling alleys to reset the pins manually. In his patent application, Boyd described the problem with the manual approach:

“In order that absolutely equal conditions exist between contestants in bowling matches, it is essential that the pins be always set on exactly the same spots …. With hand-setting this is almost impossible, so that unintentionally one contestant may have the pins in slightly better relative positions than the other contestant. Furthermore, the bowling must cease while the boy is setting the pins, and the greater care he exercises in properly positioning the pins the greater is the loss of time. Furthermore, in hand-setting the boy invariably strikes the alley with a corner of the pin-base. This quickly wears away the corners and leaves the pin round on the bottom, so it will not stand securely.”

Boyd’s mechanical device still required a human assistant, but it positioned the pins more accurately and with “no danger of toppling over any of the pins after being set.” The device was designed to be simple to construct and easy to operate, and to prevent the pins from becoming worn away at their bases.

The 15” Brunswick Score King 50 wooden bowling pin shown in the photograph is plastic coated and nylon reinforced. It bears the approving insignia of the American Bowling Congress. The Score King 50 was popular during the 1960s. Brunswick manufactured pins from the 1880s until 2015, when it sold its bowling business to a private investment firm.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Television System, patented by 24-year-old Philo Taylor Farnsworth in 1930. While driving a tractor in consecutive rows on his Mormon family’s Utah farm, young Philo had a vision of light rays scanning images one line at a time. By age 22, he had demonstrated a prototype cathode tube that could scan 20 pictures per second, creating the illusion of movement. David Sarnoff of RCA, then the leading US manufacturer of radios, heard about Farnsworth’s device and offered to buy his invention for $100,000. Farnsworth rejected Sarnoff’s offer, setting in motion decades of patent litigation. Though Farnsworth was ultimately vindicated as the inventor of television, the litigation — combined with a moratorium on consumer electronics production during World War II — deprived Farnsworth of the economic benefits of his discovery.

In his later years, Farnsworth began to doubt the value of his invention. But watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in real time in 1969 convinced him that it had all been worthwhile.

The Predicta Debutante black and white television shown in the photograph was manufactured in 1959 by Philco, an American electronics manufacturer based in Philadelphia. (The name Philco is a portmanteau of Philadelphia Battery Company.) The Predicta was marketed as the world’s first swivel-screen television, with a picture tube that separated from the rest of the cabinet. Philco launched the Predicta at the 1959 Miss America pageant. Philo Farnsworth worked at Philco from 1931 to 1933.

Although Philco stopped producing the Predicta in 1960, it remains popular with fans of mid-century modern design. If you look closely, you can spot Predicta TVs in Toy Story 2 and in the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel series.

The design patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Automobile Or Similar Article, patented by 46-year-old Italian engineer Renzo Rivolta in 1954. Rivolta owned the company Iso SpA, which manufactured scooters, small trucks, and refrigerators. He engaged Ermenegildo Preti and Pierluigi Raggi to design a small car that relied on a motorcycle engine. His goal was to create a vehicle that was as economical as a motorbike but offered the protection of a car. He named it Isetta (“little Iso”).

The Isetta has a single door in the front that hinges outward to allow entry. (The door looks suspiciously like a refrigerator door, perhaps borrowed from Rivolta’s other business line.) The steering wheel and instrument panel swings out with the door. In the event of an accident, the driver and passenger were advised to exit through the canvas sunroof. With its distinctive egg shape it became known as a bubble car.

Under a license from Rivolta, German automaker BMW produced its own variants of the Isetta from 1955 to 1962. In West Germany, the Isetta could be driven with a motorcycle license. Germans affectionately nicknamed the Isetta “Knutschkugel,” or “cuddle coach.”

The die-cast car shown in the photograph is a 1:12 scale model of an Isetta 250. It was manufactured in Senden, Germany, by KK Scale, a company specializing in high-end model cars.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Repeating Watch, patented by Charles-Henri Meylan of Le Sentier, Switzerland. An orphan who received no education beyond primary school, Meylan at an early age began a series of apprenticeships with renowned watchmakers. He showed a talent for inventing “complications,” or functions in a mechanical watch that do something other than telling time. In 1888, he devised a simple and elegant way to introduce a special complication – a “repeater” – in watches. A repeater enables a visually impaired person or a person in an unlit room to know the current time. One simply pulls a lever on the watch, and a series of chimes strike out the time in hour, minutes, and seconds. Repeater complications were first introduced in 1676, but Meylan’s innovation made it possible to include them in less expensive watches. After enjoying some popularity, repeaters eventually fell out of fashion (perhaps due in part to the advent of electric lighting). But luxury watchmakers like Jaeger-LeCoultre, Patek Phillippe, and Cartier continue to introduce new repeater models – models that rely on Meylan’s innovations – to this day.

The Russian-made mechanical railway pocket watch in the photograph was marketed by Serkisof, an Istanbul-based jeweler and importer of Soviet watches for the Turkish market. The watch relies on a Russian-made Molnija movement and was likely produced in Russia’s Chelyabinsk watch factory during the 1970s. It was a special edition model made for the Turkish State Railways, who gifted the watches to workers upon their retirement or completion of a requisite number of years of service. The rear of the watch case displays the engraving of a locomotive.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Camera, patented by 34-year-old George Eastman of Rochester, New York in 1888. Eastman was a bank clerk and amateur photographer. Like all photographers of his era, Eastman used heavy and bulky cameras that recorded their images on glass plates coated with special emulsions. In the 1870s, Eastman began experimenting with ways to replace the glass plates with negative film. Those experiments led to his invention in 1888 of the Kodak. Though large by today’s portable-camera standards, the Kodak was the first handheld film camera. It cost $25 and was user-friendly enough for amateurs to operate. The camera came bundled with 100 frames of film. When the roll was finished, the owner had to send the entire camera back to Rochester for development, printing, and re-loading of the film. Crucial to the Kodak’s success was Eastman’s marketing campaign, which featured the memorable slogan “You press the button, we do the rest.” Within 10 years of the Kodak’s release, the “snapshot” industry was firmly entrenched, with about 1.5 million roll-film cameras in the hands of amateur photographers.

The Model IIIa film camera shown in the photograph was manufactured by Leica Camera AG of Germany in 1937. The camera is paired with Leica’s Summaron 35mm f/3.5 lens and its Ernst Leitz 5 cm. view finder. Leica was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869. (The company’s name is an abridgement of “Leitz” and “camera.”) Leica invented the first practical 35mm camera to use standard cinema 35mm film, thereby creating the 35mm camera industry that continues to the present day. Aside from its brilliant innovations, Leica is to be commended for its courage during World War II, when the company smuggled hundreds of Jews out of Nazi Germany to avoid the Holocaust. Leitz’s daughter was temporarily imprisoned by the Gestapo after she was caught helping Jewish women into Switzerland.

All of the photographs in this portfolio were made with Leica cameras and lenses.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from System of Transmission of Electrical Energy, patented by the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla in 1900. Tesla believed a layer of “rarified air” formed a band around the earth about 30,000 feet up. He theorized that if high voltage current could be delivered up to that band, it would circle the earth until it was pulled down at another location. His patent described long wires at each end to carry the current up and down. Each wire was to have been held aloft by a balloon. In 1895 he was prepared to test his theory by transmitting electricity 50 miles to West Point, New York, but a fire in his lab destroyed his work before he could conduct the test.

Aside from its application to electricity, Tesla’s patent could also be applied to radio transmissions. In 1943, just a few months after Tesla’s death, the United States Supreme Court held that patent 645,576 established Tesla, not telegrapher Guglielmo Marconi of Italy, as the inventor of radio.

The Verona 20103 tabletop tube radio in the photograph was manufactured in the 1960s by Blaupunkt GmbH of Germany. (The name Blaupunkt, German for blue dot, was named for the company’s practice of painting a blue dot on products as they passed quality control.) The Verona radio featured three bands – AM, FM, and short wave – with the FM dial also functioning as a fine tuner for the short wave band. The Hi-Fi, Solo, and Sonor pushbuttons enabled the listener to make subtle changes in tone.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Telegraphy, patented by 29-year-old inventor Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Bell began his experiments in 1873, when he was Professor of Vocal Physiology at Boston University. Bell sought to improve upon Samuel Morse’s telegraph apparatus. Unlike Morse’s device, which required messages to be delivered from telegraph stations to recipients, Bell’s design allowed individuals at a distance to speak to one another directly. Three days after Bell filed his patent, the first telephone carried its inaugural message from Bell to his assistant: “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you.”

Those of us who sometimes find phone calls annoying will be happy to learn that Mr. Bell shared the sentiment. According to his wife Mabel, “Of course, he never had one in his study. That was where he went when he wanted to be alone with his thoughts and his work. The telephone, of course, means intrusion by the outside world. And the little difficulties and delays often attending the establishment of a conversation … did irritate him, so that as a rule he preferred having others send and receive messages.”

The telephone in the photograph is a functional reproduction of a 1928 telephone designed in Denmark by Kristian Kirks. The number in the center of the dial will be familiar to music lovers who grew up in the 80s.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Illusion Device, patented by inventor Horace Goldin in 1923. As everyone knows, magicians never reveal their secrets. Except, that is, when the US Patent and Trademark Office compels them to do so in exchange for a patent on their magic trick. A case in point is Horace Goldin’s 1921 application for a patent on his method of sawing a woman in half. Born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1873, Goldin was a stage magician successful enough to have performed private shows for Presidents Harding and Wilson, and for England’s King Edward VII. But his big break came in 1921, when he first presented his version of the famous sawing a woman in half illusion. Goldin didn’t create the idea of sawing a woman in half. But his method was an improvement over prior versions, because his assistant’s head, hands, and feet remained visible throughout the illusion.* Although the patent helped Goldin fend off competitors, Goldin came to regret his decision to disclose his method through the patent process. He continued to innovate on the sawing illusion for the remainder of his career, but never again sought a patent for his methods. 

The cast iron Magician Bank is a contemporary variation of the Money Box device patented by William C. Bull in 1901. You place a small coin on the table and pressing the lever to make the magician lower his hat. Then release the lever and — PRESTO! — the coin disappears into the base.

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*Would you like to know how Goldin’s illusion worked? As the patent application explains, his method relied on a secret helper. Goldin would introduce his assistant and have her lie down in a coffin-shaped box. Below the box was a surprisingly spacious base where the helper lay hidden. The assistant put her head through an opening on one end, and secretly scrunched her body into one half of the main box. The helper put her feet through an opening at the other end, and scrunched her body into the other half of the box. Goldin then thrust a blade between the two halves of the main box and separated them, creating a very effective illusion.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Flying Machine, filed by inventors Orville & Wilbur Wright in 1903. The Wright Brothers’ vigorous and successful defense of their patent in 12 lawsuits is believed by some historians to have set back the overall development of the U.S. aviation industry.

The vintage tin F20 military airplane, decorated with a skull and crossbones, was made by the Bandai toy company of Japan. Bandai was founded by World War II veteran Naoharu Yamashina in 1950.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Amusement Apparatus, filed by inventor Charles Hermann in 1920. Although simple Ferris Wheels existed prior to 1920, Hermann’s patent described a so-called “eccentric” Ferris Wheel, on which some or all of the cars slide on tracks between the hub and the rim, increasing the thrill of the ride. Hermann incorporated this eccentric feature in his design of the iconic Wonder Wheel on Coney Island in 1920. More than 100 years later, the ride remains in operation today.

The tin wind-up Hercules Ferris Wheel by J. Chein & Co. of New York City was manufactured in the 1930s. J. Chein tin toys was founded by Julius Chein, a one-armed former Vaudeville performer.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Art of Compiling Statistics, filed by German-American inventor Herman Hollerith in 1889. The patent describes a punch card tabulating machine, which ushered in the era of mechanized binary code and data processing. In 1924, Hollerith’s company became International Business Machines (IBM). 

The tin Arithmetic Quizzer toy is made by Modern Toys of Japan and is a tool to learn basic math. When you press the handles, arithmetic problems appear in the openings. Lift the tin flaps at the top to see the answers.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Rocket Apparatus, filed by inventor Robert Hutchings Goddard in 1913. Goddard’s innovations in the field of rocketry paved the way for modern space flight, and many of his principles are still in use today. In 1959, NASA renamed its first space center in his honor.

The rocket bank from Nelles Studios of Williamsburg, Michigan, is cast in aluminum and bronze. The nosecone opens to reveal a bronze spaceman.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Type-Writing Machine, patented by inventor Christopher Latham Sholes in 1878. Sholes was a Milwaukee-based politician, newspaper publisher, and amateur inventor. Machines to impress letters on paper had been developed as early as the 16th Century, but the typewriter did not come into common use commercially until around 1880. Sholes’ 1878 typewriter patent is noteworthy because it is the first to incorporate the so-called QWERTY keyboard design, named for the first six letters in the first row (earlier keyboards had presented the letters alphabetically). By 1893, the QWERTY layout had become the standard across the industry, and it remains so today. 

The Bantam typewriter in the photograph was manufactured by Remington Rand Co. of Ilion, New York, a manufacturer of both typewriters and firearms, and a business partner of Sholes. All Bantam typewriters were made in 1938. Remington marketed the Bantam as an educational toy to teach touch typing to children — the colors showed the child which finger to use when striking a key.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Vehicle, filed by inventor Howard Brownlee Graham in 1916. Graham, a resident of Omaha, was the first licensed ice cream manufacturer in Nebraska. The Graham Ice Cream Company’s horse-drawn sales wagons delivered his product to businesses and residents. His patent application described a class of vehicles to be used in the transportation of ice cream from factories to dealers.

The tin “Good Flavor” ice cream truck, complete with driver and friction motor, was manufactured by Yoshiya of Japan in the 1950s.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Microscope, patented by 31-year-old inventor Edward Bausch in 1885. The son of John J. Bausch, who founded the optical firm Bausch & Lomb in Rochester, New York, Edward built his first microscope at age 14. In the 1870s, all microscopes were made in Germany and sold for more than $1000. There were fewer than 100 of them in the United States. Edward set out to design a less expensive model that could be widely used by US doctors and scientists. By taking an existing product and making it affordable and accessible, it has been said that Edward Bausch did for microscopes what Henry Ford did for automobiles.

The vintage compound microscope in the photograph was manufactured by Spencer Lens Company of Buffalo, New York, and sold through its agent, Hawksley & Sons of London. Charles Achilles Spencer (1813-1881) is believed to have been the first American manufacturer of microscopes.

The patent information etched into the plexiglass above this image is excerpted from Road Engine, filed by inventor and patent lawyer George Baldwin Selden in 1879 and granted in 1895. Photography innovator George Eastman signed the application as a witness. (Eastman was both a client of Selden and a student of Selden’s photographic techniques.) Selden’s patent application claimed to cover all self-propelled wheeled vehicles in the United States. Henry Ford successfully contested Selden’s patent in an eight-year legal battle.

The red die cast car, made by Bburago of Italy, is a replica of a Porsche 356B Roadster. Porsche released its first 356 model in 1948, and introduced the 356B in 1960.