SCIENCE 1927: Photomaton

Photomaton

“The average inventor has a hard life and it is a rare instance for him to reap the rewards of his invention as I have done.” So said one Anatol Josepho of New York last week, a few moments after pocketing a slip of paper upon which were written the idyllic figures $1,000,000. His invention was a “quarter-in-the-slot” machine. Out of it comes, not gum or hairpins, but a strip of eight sepia photographs, each 2 in. x 1½ in., showing the quarter-dropper in whatever eight poses it has pleased him to strike. The pictures are photographed direct upon sensitized paper. To make a strip of eight pictures requires only eight minutes. A syndicate of men successful enough to know a real gold brick when they see one—including onetime Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau—had bought Inventor Josepho’s device.

Inventor Josepho, who is a Socialist only three years removed from penniless Russian immigrancy, will act consistently. Half of his million he will devote to general charity; half “to helping my brother inventors to similar success.”