The Historical Stock Ticker Tape Machine

Thomas Edison invented the Universal Stock Ticker Tape Machine in the 1870s, and Wall Street was never the same. The Universal Stock Ticker is often referred to as his first commercially successful invention. Complicated yet beautiful these machines consist of over 200 individual parts.

Lesser known to most, the first actual stock printing instrument was invented by E. A. Calahan in 1867, known as the Calahan Ticker. Since then, others have also been produced including the New York Quotation Machine (1890s), the Western Union Self Winding Ticker (1900s) and a few others as well.

The iconic tick of continuous printing throughout the day in offices of bankers and brokers in New York continued until the 1960s when the stock ticker tape machine was inevitably deemed obsolete by the speed and accuracy of computers.