What was this old leave-a-message machine?

September 7, 2016 9:33 PM

I remember reading in the past few years about an old machine that was like a paid bulletin board. You'd pay a nickel to leave a small (business card or smaller) sized message and people could check it. I think the article I read compared it to Twitter, and was illustrated with an old engraving.

To clarify, I'm not sure about the exact timeline of this machine but I'm pretty sure it was pre-WW2 at least. I wouldn't be surprised it if was from the 19th century.

posted by 23 to Technology (3 answers total)

I found this patent.
posted by Sar at 12:36 AM on September 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth, I remember reading the same article, but have been unable to find it again.
posted by mcav at 4:56 PM on September 8, 2016

Response by poster: Found it - it was called The Notificator.
posted by 23 at 10:07 PM on September 20, 2016 [1 favorite]