From 1790 to 1880 the United States required that anyone applying for a patent need present more than just a diagram, but an actual working model of their invention, and while this practice has long since been abolished, thousands of these proof of concept contraptions are kept on display at the Rothschild Patent Museum, the largest collection of patent models in the world.
During the time that the patent office required the submission of physical models of any patent pending inventions some 200,000 or more projects were submitted, growing into a staggering collection of largely clockwork oddities. As the collection of half-baked inventions grew, the storage space required to store them quickly became and issue and the patent office gave up the practice in 1880, moving to the more manageable diagram system. A select few of the leftover models were snapped up by the Smithsonian, but the remainder were sold off by at auction with the majority of them being purchased by Sir Henry Wellcome, the founder of the company that would become Glaxo Smith Kline. Wellcome left the models in storage during his lifetime, but after his death the collection changed hands a number of times before landing in the possession of Alan Rothschild.
Rothschild presented his newly found collection of thousands of models as the Rothschild Petersen Patent Model Museum in 1998. Included in the collection are such unique inventions as a combination whip/cane, couches that come together to create a boat, and a ratty mechanical dog meant to shoo away pigeons. The museum is also filled with more mundane inventions that are nonetheless fascinating for their Victorian ingenuity such as a paper bag folding machine and a mechanical horseshoe bender.
Only a fraction of Rothschild’s full collection is on display in his museum, with the rest in storage or being repaired in the onsite shop. The collection is private and tours are only led by appointment, but access to this one of a kind collection is well worth applying for.