Our website is designed to promote, sell and buy antique ticker tape machines.  Philip Gallant, owner of The Antique Circus, has been buying and selling antique ticker tape machines for over 30 years.

Ticker tape machines make excellent gifts for anyone in the banking or finance business!

History of Ticker Tape Machines

Stock tickers were the first mechanical means of conveying stock prices a long distance over telegraph wiring.  One of the earliest practical stock ticker machines is the Universal Stock Ticker developed by Thomas Edison in 1869.  The increase in speed provided by the ticker allowed for faster and more exact sales.

Since the ticker ran continuously, updates to a stock’s price became effective much faster.  Trading became a more time-sensitive matter.

By the 1880’s, there were about 1000 stock tickers installed in the offices of New York bankers and brokers.  In 1890, members of the exchange agreed to create the New York Quotation Company, buying up all other ticker companies to ensure accuracy of reporting price and volume activity.

The machines printed a series of ticker symbols followed by brief information about the price of that company’s stock.  The thin strip of paper on which the symbols were printed was called ticker tape.  The word ticker comes from the distinct tapping or ticking noise the machines made while printing.

Newer and more efficient tickers became available in the 1930s, but these newer and better tickers still had an approximate 15-to-20-minute delay.  Ticker machines became obsolete in the 1960s, replaced by computer networks.

Note:  This information is edited from Wikipedia.  For more information, click here:  http://en.wikipedia.org and search for antique ticker tape machines.