Ohmer Cash Register

This cash register has a metal cash box and case. The wooden cash drawer has a flat black slab above it. The machine has four levers for setting amounts of money to $99.99. A mechanism sets the 2-digit department number, and a lever sets the identity of the clerk. The manually operated machine has an operating crank on the right side. It has no paper tape. The machine has indicator dials in a glass case at the top, with totals visible on both sides. On the left side is a window that shows a date of MAY 15. The cash drawer contains a key and a pill bottle.

The machine is marked at the base of the front: OHMER REGISTER CO. (/) DAYTON, OHIO, U.S.A. It is also marked: CLASS 807 (4)R -D3 (/) Serial No. 6056. It is marked on the bottom of the cash drawer: GUARANTEE. . . . OHMER REGISTER COMPANY (/)(Signed) John F. Ohmer (/) President.

Ohmer made the cases for early NCR cash registers. The Ohmer Car Register Company was founded in 1898 to make registers for streetcar, train and bus fares. The Ohmer Register Company was incorporated in 1931 as a distributing agency for the original firm. Cash registers seem to have been made under the Ohmer name from about that time until not long after the sale of the firm to Rockwell Manufacturing Company in 1946. John F. Ohmer died in 1938.

Reference:

“Ohmer, John F.,” National Cyclopedia of American Biography, vol. 33, p. 18.

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