I am completely smitten with this thing, in significant part due just to the looks of it, but also for the pure pleasure of pulling the lever and watching the sawtoothed, numbered disks tick forward, with ten ticks on the left dial advancing the middle one, and a hundred ticks finally advancing the right dial one tick. Gorgeous black painted stenciled numbers against creamy white, and old blue paint on the box. To me, satisfying on every level and one might use it now to count all sorts of things up to 1000.
Some trial and error led me to learn that this was a counter/tally box was used together with a threshing machine, powered by horses. The horses as I understand it would be hitched to something like a big wheel, with gears in the middle that turned a shaft and powered the thresher. As the grain came out of the thresher, someone would shovel it into a bushel container. Once full, they would hit the lever on the box, tracking the amount of grain harvested.
I found another like it out there online that was attached to a larger box stenciled Nesmith's Patent Grain Counter, Washington, Illinois, with a 1873 patent date, though I think there were a couple of slightly early also patented iterations. I’ve included the patent information in photos.
8 3/8” w x 4” d x 9 3/8” t including handle, and heavy. Very good operating condition when the handle is pointing up (it will not work if turned upside down.) Once this would have had a glass fronted door that closed over the dials, but I think all the better without. There is something rattling around inside that one can hear if you shake it, no matter I don't think.
**See photos for a video of it working and original patent info.
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