Profitable Ideas.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 16 October 1914, Page 8

Profitable Ideas.

A large fortune was realised by the inventor who patented the idea of making umbrellas- from alpaca instead of gingham, and Samuel Fox, the patentee of the improved paragon frame, left by will about £87,000 from the profits of his invention. Enormous sums have been reaped from the mechanical contrivances for carpet-beating, convenient boxes of various kinds for packing goods, to say nothing of those wonderful inventions connected with electricity and the manufacture of indiarubber. Indeed, the patents on small articles ' have always been most lucrative. The rubber tip at the end of lead pencils has yielded well over £25,000. A large sum was gained by the man who conceived the idea of an inverted glass bell to hang over gas jets, and thus prevent the ceilings from being blackened, and the gimlet-pointed screw has been worth thousands of pounds. The inventor of the safety-match— or rather the prescient person who protected the idea —made a huge fortune ;so did the owner of the first safety-pin patent.