Parking Meter Mechanism, 10 hr, Coin Operated Timer, Duncan, Working, Vintage

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Parking Meter Mechanism, 10 hr, Coin Operated Timer, Duncan, Working, Vintage:
$19.99

You are offerding on 1 used Duncan Parking Meter Mechanism. It is the internal part of a common parking meter. Fits Duncan meter housings. It works by inserting a quarter and turning the knob to wind the timer, after which the quarter falls out the bottom. When the time runs out the red expired Flag pops up. Turning the handle makes a yellow violation Flag pop up momentarily. It has been tested to wind with a quarter and tick. The back reveals a metal clockwork enclosed in a clear plastic cover. When wound by a coin the gears can be observed moving and it ticks. This is a complicated clockwork mechanism and is not warranted. However if it is not working on receipt I will exchange it. Makes a great conversation piece. Build a box for underneath and it\'s a bank, or find a new use. These are used mechanisms, retired from municipal service. They are victims of the conversion to electronic meter systems.They will show minor signs of use and wear.They are in much better condition than most other used timers I see offered. The pictures shown are representational and the approximate range of condition you can expect is represented in the picture of 2 mechanisms side by side. These are heavy items. They ship promptly via Priority Mail. If you buy 2 mechanisms they can ship together in a flat rate box within the US for only $2. more.
Thanks for looking.
Background info on parking meters:The early parking meters were totally mechanical (as are many even today). The meters were powered by a clock-type mainspring, which required periodic winding. There were two general approaches to accomplishing this: some meters wereautomatic, and some weremanual.

With an automatic meter, the patron merely inserts the required coin and the clockworks move the \"time remaining\" indicator to the appropriate location, and start the timing mechanism. While this is convenient for the patron, it requires parking meter maintenance personnel to periodically walk the streets winding parking meters.

In a manual meter, winding is accomplished by the patron turning a handle after a coin is inserted. Since the meter only needs to run long enough for the current patron\'s time to expire (a few hours, at most), the mainspring can be made smaller and runs down much faster. In addition, the employees\' hours required to wind parking meters can be eliminated which, in turn, reduces overhead costs and increases the net revenues to the meter owner. Thank you very much, John Q. Public, for winding our meters for us.

The first parking meters were manufactured by the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter company. But they didn\'t get to keep the market all to themselves forever; parking meters were manufactured by others as well. Some of those manufacturers were Dual, Mark-Time, and Duncan-Miller. Of today\'s parking meter manufacturers, the ones with the longest bloodlines are probably POM, Inc., descendants of Magee\'s company, and Duncan Industries, of Duncan-Miller ancestry.

As parking meters became more and more common, it was a certainty that the criminal element would eventually discover that each one of those meters could contain a somewhat respectable amount of money, albeit all in small change. It was relatively easy to break into a parking meter and help oneself to its contents. Parking meter burglaries were fairly regular occurrences almost everywhere meters were installed. This lead to security improvements by the manufacturers, and by the mid 1960\'s most meters were available with armored coin boxes.

Although many cities were able to reduce their personnel costs by using manual parking meters, the money still had to be collected from the meters on a regular basis, and this too required manpower. So did installing posts upon which to mount the meters. Occasionally those posts got hit by a car, and had to be straightened or replaced. And for every metered parking space, there were one post and one meter.

Once again the manufacturers came up with a way to reduce their customers\' costs, and thus further improve their revenues. Enter the dual head parking meter. Except for some end spaces on a block, the number of posts and meters could be cut in half. This served to reduce labor costs in several ways. First, the number of posts and parking meters that had to be installed was reduced. Second, the number of targets for wayward vehicles was reduced, and thus the number of potential \"knock downs.\" And third, each dual head meter served two spaces but had only one coin box from which to collect, which reduced the time required to collect the money. A bonus was that cutting the number of parking meters and posts in half greatly reduced the amount of sidewalk clutter, which made everyone happy.

An early patent for a parking meter, US patent,[1]was filed byRoger W. Babson, on August 30, 1928. The meter was intended to operate on power from the battery of the parking vehicle and required a connection from the vehicle to the meter.

Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale designed the first working parking meter, the Black Maria, in 1935. The History Channel\'s...History\'s Lost and Founddocuments their success in developing the first working parking meter. Thuesen and Hale were engineering professors at Oklahoma State and began working on the parking meter in 1933 at the request ofCarl C. MageeofOklahoma City, Oklahoma,United States.[2]The world\'s first installed parking meter was in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935.[3][4][5]

Industrial production started in 1936 and expanded until the mid-1980s. The first models were based on a coin acceptor, a dial to engage the mechanism and a visible pointer and Flag to indicate expiration of paid period. This configuration lasted for more than 40 years, with only a few changes in the exterior design, like the double-headed version and the incorporation of new materials and production techniques.[6]

Upon insertion ofcoinsinto acurrency detectorslot or swiping acredit cardorsmartcardinto a slot, and turning a handle (or pressing a key), a timer is set within the meter. Some locations now allow payment bymobile phone(to remotely record payments for subsequent checking and enforcement).[7]A dial or display

on the meter indicates the time remaining. In many cities, all parking meters are designed to use only one type of coin. Use of other coins will fail to register, and the meter may cease to function altogether. For example, inHackensack, New Jerseyall parking meters are designed forquartersonly.[8]

In 1960,New York Cityhired its first crew of\"meter maids\"; all were women. It was not until 1967 that the first man was hired.[9]

In the mid-1980s, a digital version was introduced, replacing the mechanical parts with electronic components: boards, keyboards and displays. This allowed more flexibility to the meter, as anEEPROMchip can be reconfigured more easily than corresponding mechanical components.

By the beginning of the 1990s, millions of parking meter units had been sold around the world, but the market was already looking into new solutions, like the collectivepay and displaymachines and new forms ofpaymentthat appeared along withelectronic moneyand communication technologies.

Conceptualized in 1932 by Oklahoma Cityan Carl C. Magee, the parking meter was a modern solution to a modern vexation, parking congestion. Carl C. Magee arrived in Oklahoma City from New Mexico in 1927. In his former life he had worked as a reporter for an Albuquerque newspaper, had exposed the Teapot Dome scandal, and had testified against Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall. Magee was later arrested for manslaughter in an altercation with a New Mexico judge but was acquitted. Surviving these episodes, he came to Oklahoma City to start a newspaper, the Oklahoma News.

Traffic congestion problems in 1920s and 1930s Oklahoma City typified those of most major American cities of the day. In Oklahoma in 1913 there had been an estimated 3,000 cars; by 1930 there were 500,000, most of which were registered in Oklahoma County and the capital city. The problem was that people who worked downtown occupied all of the parking spots every day, forcing retail customers to park far away from stores. The city had placed time limits on parking, with enforcement performed by traffic police who chalked tires, marked time, and gave tickets on hourly rounds. The parking situation came under scrutiny by the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce in 1932. Appointed chair of the Traffic Committee, Magee assumed the task of solving the problem.

Magee decided that the situation required the invention of a small, windable, inexpensively made, mechanical device to \"time\" the use of each parking space. In 1932 he designed and built a crude model and on December 21, 1932, filed for a patent. In order to refine the concept and build a real working prototype, he joined forces with the Oklahoma State University Engineering Department. Together, they sponsored a design competition with prize money of $160 for the winning design and $240 for the submission of a working model. The contest ran from February 17 to May 6, 1933. While several students built models, unfortunately none of the submissions was acceptable. Professor H. G. Thuesen joined the project soon afterward and enlisted the help of Gerald A. Hale, former engineering student and 1927 OSU graduate. For the new model, dubbed the \"Black Maria,\" they created the interior parts; a local plumber made the exterior shell. By late 1933 McGee, Thuesen, and Hale began looking for a manufacturer.

The MacNick Company of Tulsa, makers of timing devices used to explode nitroglycerin in oil wells, contracted to manufacture the unit. On July 16, 1935, 175 meters were installed and tested on fourteen blocks in Oklahoma City, and when the system proved successful, the city placed meters all over downtown. Magee then raised money from 125 businessmen and incorporated the Dual Parking Meter Company, with offices in the Commerce and Exchange Building, Oklahoma City. The units were first trademarked as the \"Dual\" and later as the \"Park-O-Meter,\" under patents held by Magee. After World War II a new organization, Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Company, manufactured the product in Oklahoma City, and Dual was sold to an Ohio company.

The impact of the parking meter was threefold. First, it straightened out Oklahoma City\'s parking problem. Second, it brought revenue into the city coffers through meter money (a nickel an hour) and parking fines (a twenty-dollar fine for each violation). Third, it stimulated a huge growth in the assessed valuation of downtown commercial property. Carl C. Magee had started a trend, and parking meters sprang up in cities across the nation.