Big Fortunes from Little Inventions

It has become almost an axiom with the majority that larger fortunes are to be raised from some simple invention than from difficult and expensive inventions that involve a great outlay of money to manufacture. This is, to a certain extent, true. A certain American patent for fastening kid gloves has yielded a fortune of several hundred thousand dollars for its fortunate owner, and the inventor of a collar-clasp enjoys $20,000 royalty a year as the reward for his endeavor. A new kind of sleeve-button has made $50,000 in five years for its patentee, and the simple twisting of safety-pins in such a way that there is no possible danger of the point sticking in the child promises to enrich its owner beyond any of his early dreams of wealth. A man one day turned a piece of wire so as to hold a cork more securely in a bottle, and forthwith somebody saw a brilliant idea, and patented the modern wire stopple-holder, which is now used annually on several million bottles. The accidental bending of a hairpin by a woman to prevent it from sliding out of her hair so easily produced a fortune for her husband, who immediately saw the possibilities of a crinkled hairpin for women.

Instances could be multiplied indefinitely of large fortunes being made from small inventions, but fortunately for those inventors who make a life study of intricate problems of mechanics, and disdain to waste their talents upon trivial, popular articles of the day, there is often ample reward held in store for the products that take years to produce, and which revolutionize existing methods of industry and mechanics. Edison has reaped honors and riches of a princely character from his discoveries; McCormick has realized in his reaper the fortunes of a millionaire: the Corliss engine brought honors and decorations to its inventor, and enabled him to amass a great fortune in a few years; Prof. Bell found in his telephone not only the consummation of his early hopes and ambitions, but a substantial pecuniary reward; Harveyized steel armor has become synonymous with the inventor’s name, and it brings an annual income of huge proportions to its discoverer; Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing-machine, realized over $2,000,000 from his inventions; and Nikola Tesla, though still young and rich in promises, finds an abundance of money in his work — George Ethelbert Walsh in Cassier’s Magazine.