Continuing the mail theme from Friday’s post, on July 28, 1942, U.S. Patent No. 2,290,920, issued on a Coin Operated Mailing Machine.

This was actually the third patent to issue to inventor Linden Thatcher on this invention in 1942 (U.S. Patent No. 2,358,424 and 2,273,300) and is one of a total of five for this prolific inventor.

All these patents were assigned to the Pitney-Bowes Postage Meter Company, which has a long history of inventing and patenting. In 1902, Arthur Pitney patented his first “double-locking” hand-cranked postage-stamping machine (U.S. Patent No. 710,997), and with patent attorney Eugene A. Rummler, founded the Pitney Postal Machine Company, which became the American Postage Meter Company in 1912.

In 1920, the company merged with Walter Bowes’ Universal Stamping Machine Company with the invention of the first commercially available postage meter. U.S. Patent No. RE14916, a reissue of the Company’s earlier U.S. Patent No. 1,273,792.