Automatic Age

the a u t o m a t ic a g e
V°L . 5
C H ICAG O , M A Y , 1&29
No. 10
Stamp Venders Service Post Office Patrons
By P E T E R J. W E IG L E , Postmaster of Detroit
(Speech given at Convention and Exposition held in Detroit, February 25-28.)
My experience insofar as coin
°perated machines are concerned,
° f course, is limited to those selling
stamps. I want to emphasize how­
l e r , that I am not here representing
the Post Office Department.
You
know, the Post Office Department
Unctions in a peculiar way.
Con­
f e s s , by Civil Service Laws and by
a lot of competition, furnishes the
help that we employ in the Post
Offices. The rates that we charge for
Postage are provided for by Con­
gress, so that the Post Office Depart­
ment functions according to dictation
from the legislative body, and be­
muse of those things it is sometimes
difficult to get over some of our at­
titudes in reference to machines of
this kind.
However, the Post Office Depart-
m®nt has in the past eight years per­
mitted some vending machines in the
corridor of the Detroit Post Office.
believe we have the most complete
outfit of stamp vending machines of
any city in the United States, if not
°n the continent.
W e have stamp
Vending machines that will sell one
stamp for one cent, five stamps for
ve cents, five two-cent stamps for a
lme, a twenty-cent package of
stamps, a stamped envelope for two
°ents, two sheets of writing paper for
a nickle; and we have another ma­
chine that will not only sell you a
stamp but will make change for you.
It has been my experience that
h©se machines render particularly
© International Arcade Museum
valuable service during the night,
when the Post Office is supposed to
be closed. In a city like Detroit the
corridors of the Post Office are open
all night; and while we close our
stamp w ndows from nine o’clock in
the evening until seven o’clock the
following morning, these stamp vend­
ing machines are there and prepared
to render service to any individual
who may have some correspondence
that he wants to take care o f; and
from that viewpoint, it strikes me
that they are very valuable.
That also applies to small offices.
Many of the smaller offices through­
out the nation close at six and seven
o’clock in the evening. They leave
the corridors open until eleven or
twelve o’clock at night, so that those
who hold boxes may get their mail.
I believe that to date this idea has
not been entirely sold to the Post
Office Department, because they have
not put them in general use; but the
machines do render a valuable ser­
vice of which the Detroit Post Office,
perhaps, has given an unquestionable
example.
Five years ago we were selling
stamps on Sunday by an eight-hour
window service.
During the past
five years stamp vending machines
have rendered the same service,
thereby saving the clerk’s time. This
is the point to stress in order to sell
these vending machines. I f we were
to have a night window open all
night, we would have the cost of the
http://www.arcade-museum.com/