US 5,492,504 AGranted

Pocket portable coin dispenser

OwnerCharles P. Woltersinventor

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Abstract

The invention involves a coin dispenser that can be carried in its user's clothing pocket, and has multiple chambers for holding coins with their faces parallel to the dispenser's largest face. Each chamber holds its coins in a stack. Each stack is urged upward by a follower and spring toward a pair of opposing retaining ledges at the top of the dispenser. Each follower has a center stub on its spring side which is guided in a hole in the dispenser's bottom. This guidance reduces the coverage of a top coin needed by the pair of ledges. The reduced coverage provides improved access of a user's finger or thumb to the top coin for pushing it radially through an opening and out of the dispenser. Each guided follower also prevents a top coin from tilting its edge away from its opening or a user's pushing finger. Each chamber has a trough cutting into it, opposite the opening, which aids the user's finger access to a top coin. The trough also gives the user a view of the edges of all the coins in the chamber for counting them. The dispenser can be spun in the fingers to quickly access other coin chambers. The dispenser has a snap-on bottom cover that is contoured to approximate the shape of the user's body when carried in his or her clothing pocket.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A coin dispenser from which a user urges out coins with his or her finger or thumb, and with which he or she can carry coins in a clothing pocket, comprising:

a body made of molded plastic,
an even number of cylindrical coin holding chambers of different diameters for holding coins face to face in stacks with the coins' faces parallel to the largest orthogonal face of said body, said chambers being arranged in pairs, the coins being axially movable within said chambers,
a pair of ledges opposing each other and substantially parallel to each other affixed on said body at one end of each chamber for retaining the coins, all pairs of ledges being on one face of said body, each ledge protruding partway toward the center of its chamber,
an opening in each chamber for an appropriate coin to slide radially beside said pair of ledges into and out of said chamber and said body, said opening being at one end of said pair of ledges,
a land on the same face of said body on which said pairs of ledges are affixed, said land being recessed into said body beyond said pairs of ledges and being at opposite ends of said pairs of ledges from said openings, said land communicating all chambers and giving access of the outermost coins' edges to the urging finger or thumb of the dispenser's user,
a cover attached to the face of said body that is opposite from the face having said pairs of ledges,
an overall thickness dimension of the dispenser measured from the outside of said pair of ledges to the outside surface of said cover being less than the diameter of the largest diameter coin that can be carried in the dispenser,
a floor being on the inside surface of said cover and communicating with the ends of said chambers which are opposite said pairs of ledges,
a substantially circular plate inside each chamber having a diameter slightly smaller than the diameter of its surrounding chamber, said plate located in-between said pair of ledges and said floor,
a coil compression spring inside each chamber located in-between said floor and said plate for urging coins against said pair of ledges,
a substantially cylindrical stub being coaxially fixed to the face of each plate which is adjacent said spring, said stub having an axial length of less than seventy percent of the diameter of the affixed plate,
a sink centered with each chamber being in said floor,
a sleeve fixed to the center of each sink, coaxial with each chamber and being inside each spring, and
a hole passing through and coaxial with each sleeve, said hole continuing through said cover and having a diameter slightly larger than the diameter of said stub, said stub being engaged with and axially slidable with said hole, said sleeve having a sufficient axial length whereby said sleeve and said cover substantially encompass said stub when said plate is depressed completely toward said floor, said stub and said hole being for the maintaining of said plate square with its surrounding chamber.

11 more elements

A coin dispenser from which a user urges out coins with his or her finger or thumb, and with which he or she can carry coins in a clothing pocket, comprising:

a body,
a plurality of substantially cylindrical coin holding chambers for holding coins face to face in stacks with the coins' faces generally parallel to the largest orthogonal face of said body, the coins being axially movable in said chambers,
a pair of ledges opposing each other affixed on said body at one end of each chamber for retaining the coins, all pairs of ledges being on one face of said body, each ledge protruding partway toward the center of its chamber,
an opening in each chamber for an appropriate coin to slide radially beside said pair of ledges into and out of said chamber and said body, said opening being at one end of said pair of ledges,
a land on the same face of said body on which said pairs of ledges are affixed, said land being recessed into said body beyond each pair of ledges and being at the opposite end of each pair of ledges from said opening, said land giving access of the edge of the outermost coin in an adjacent chamber to the urging finger or thumb of the dispenser's user,
a cover attached to the face of said body that is opposite from the face having said pairs of ledges,
an overall thickness dimension of the dispenser being less than the diameter of the largest diameter coin that can be carried in the dispenser,
a floor being at the end of each chamber that is opposite said pair of ledges,
a plate inside each chamber having a diameter slightly smaller than the diameter of its surrounding chamber, said plate located in-between said pair of ledges and said floor,
a compression spring inside each chamber located in-between said floor and said plate for urging coins against said pair of ledges,
a stub being centrally located on and fixed perpendicular to the face of each plate which is adjacent said spring, said stub having an axial length shorter than the diameter of the affixed plate,
a sleeve fixed to the inside surface of said cover, said sleeve being centered within each chamber and being inside each spring, and
a hole passing through each sleeve and continuing into said cover, said hole having a diameter slightly larger than the diameter of said stub, said stub being engaged with and axially slidable with said hole, said sleeve having a sufficient axial length and said cover being adequately thick whereby said sleeve and said cover substantially encompass said stub when said plate is depressed completely toward said floor, said stub and said hole being for the maintaining of said plate square with its surrounding chamber.

10 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.