McCaskey Machines page 2

I went home one day and much to my surprise I had received an e-mail from a gentleman by the name of Bud Dale. Mr. Dale was a salesman of McCaskey cash registers in the 50's and 60's. He was able to provide me with a lot of new information that you will see posted on this page. McCaskey Registers were sold with a choice of two keyboards. One was a merchandise system pictured on the left. The other one was a service station gallonage system pictured on the right. Both registers were itemizing with one grand total on the merchandise machine. The gas station system had a split keyboard with two totals.

Either one of these machines would have been used with what was called "The Blue Ribbon System". This consisted of one of these registers with a large charge account drawer with room for approximatley 300 accounts(Model D102G4). This was an excellent choice for both markets that they were designed for, but quite massive for it's time. They also sold the same charge system with other McCaskey Cash Registers that were non-itemizing both electric and manual. These were not called "The Blue Ribbon System" though. The top right  was the ER-7 , it was a non-itemizer with one grand total or a split keyboard gallonage service station model which could be purchased with a cashier key which had to be inserted in the front of the machine allowing the cashier to operate the register.The top left was the X-6 it was a simple non-itemizer. There was also an older model that McCaskey sold called "The McCaskey Cheese Cutter". This system had a visual indication, and a lateral lever to select the price of the sale. After selecting the price the lever was pressed down(like cutting cheese). We beleive these were the 295 the 295SC and the 695 each with different features. They were possibly manufactured by McCaskey's contract manufacturers. If you have ever seen them they bear a resemblance to a St. Louis type that we have seen. McCaskey Registers were built with pride and built to last and they lasted for years as is evident in so many of them still being around. Most of them didn't wear out but were traded in for systems that had higher technology.

This cash register happens to be my favorite so far. I think it is a beautiful example of what McCaskey produced. With the oak drawer and slide out writing table.  If the machine on the top looks familiar it should.  It is very similar to the adding machine that was shown on my previous page.  I have since aquired one of my own shown below. I found out from Mr. Dale that these machines actually have a name and surprise they are called AMODS (adding machine on a cash drawer). For the most part that's what all cash registers were called that did not have visual indication. They sounded simple enough, but the mfg.'s developed systems of interlocks that made their systems quite unique.

You can see the cash register pictured on the left and the adding machine pictured to the right look almost exactly the same. The difference between the two is in the setup of the keys. The cash register would have cashier keys labled with letters. The biggest difference is with the three keys on the left side of the machine. The cash register would have total paid out and charge, the adding machine would have sub total, total and non add.

Even though there is no cabinet surrounding this I wanted you to be able to see some what what the McCaskey system would have looked like set up the way it should have been.

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