Cash registers may not have been invented if everyone was honest, though their ability to track sales for accounting purposes is equally useful. The first “Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier” came from the Ritty brothers in Dayton, Ohio with a patent granted in 1883. National Cash Register acquired the patent in 1884 and is still in business today with a history that took NCR from electric registers to LCDs to the signature capture devices of today’s computerized systems. The brass registers of the past are now coveted by restaurants and bars to lend a nostalgic air to their establishments. Known as “tombstones” by bartenders, these old machines harken back to their origins quite well: James Ritty was a barkeeper when he invented that first mechanical register. His Pony House Saloon survived him and Prohibition, closing in 1967. On the Bowery, former cash register central of Manhattan, the Faermans of Faerman Cash Register still make a business of keeping those “ka-chings” in good shape.