Featured "Tickets, please!" - Antique Ticket-Punch and Ticket Board

I went to my local tram-museum today. While I was moseying around, I noticed a few bits and bobs for sale at the gift-shop out the front. Since I had the chance, I decided to buy the ticket-punch and the old, six-slot (three other side) ticket-board.



The punch was used to mark checked tickets, and the ticket-board was used by the conductor to hold bunches of tickets (which were mounted on cardboard slips which were slid into the gaps in the board, and the tickets were perforated so you could just rip them off one at a time).

 

I might have scarfed the lot.(LOL) I pretty much grew up at a trolley museum locally. My dad was a rail nut.

 

They had a whole box of ticket punches for sale. Back in the old days (I'm talking like, 1880s-1930s) conductors used to have bell-punches. The ticket-punches had a small bell attached to them, like a bicycle bell. Every time you clicked a ticket, it let off a little 'ding!' so that you could tell over the rattling of the streetcar, that the ticket had actually been checked properly.

I asked the guys at the museum if they had any for sale. They did not. Apparently they're quite rare.

 

Here we are. The only place I could even find a PHOTOGRAPH of a bell punch was on the tram museum website...



The cylinder underneath the punch was where they collected all the confetti from each ticket-punch. At the end of the day, they opened the cylinder and counted all the little bits of paper to ensure that the tickets punched tallied up with the cash in paid fares.

The bell is inside the circular drum on the left. The number (B - 1182) referred to the tram depot where the ticket-punch came from.

 

Pretty cool. Also pretty smart.