The Baldwin Flyer

Baldwin cash carrier systems were generally known as "Bladwin Flyers". An advertisement in the Dry Goods Merchants Trade Journal of August 1925 claimed that "From the East Coast to the West [of the United States], the progressive merchants are using the Flyer... A quarter of a century of service rendering has improved the Baldwin Flyer until today it is recognised everywhere as an answer to the problem of efficient money handling." James L. Baldwin & Co. was based at the Central Union Block at the corner of Madison and Market Streets, Chicago. In support of their claim, testimonials were quoted from customers in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Oregon.

James Baldwin took out US patent no.1,432,947 in 1922 and another in 1931 relating to a wire system able to travel vertically.

The illustration shows a wire carriage and a propulsion with and elastic, rather like the Rapid Wire system.

From US patent no. 1,784,776 of 1930

The Indianapolis Star of 27 July 2003 reported a Baldwin Flyer system still operating at Stout's Shoes, Massachusetts Avenue, Indianapolis. The store was opened in 1886 and the flyer dates from 1928. (The article reports its 75th anniversary.) The flyer carries the shoes and the money in a "worn leather cash box" up a wire to the mezzanine floor where an employee (often Mr Brad Stout) makes change, wraps the goods, and returns it. "On a busy day, all you hear is the swish-swish-swish of the baskets going up and down" he said. The manufacturer, based at Rosemont Ill., said that this was the only one still in active service. The Smithsonian Institution had asked for one to display but none was available.

Another system of different design (model 31) has been re-errected at LeBaron & Miller Interiors, Freeport, Illinois.

In 2007 part of a system from the Emery Bird Thayer department store in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, was offered for sale on eBay and kind permission was given to reproduce the photographs below.

As with other makes, Baldwin Flyers were used for other applications. The San Antonio [Texas] Express, 3 Dec. 1952, p.20 reported "The Baldwin Flyer is going again... That.. is the Baldwin Flyer, known in this office as 'The Goldberg', after a man named Rube. The Goldberg is our mechanical copy boy."