For this challenge, I chose to recreate a real piece of retail history, a beautiful hand-crank National Cash Register, Model 422X.
The story behind the cash register is honestly one of the most interesting bits of design trivia. It all started in 1879, when a Dayton, Ohio bar owner named James Ritty got fed up with employees skimming cash from the till. His solution was a mechanical contraption he nicknamed "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier", arguably the world's first cash register, born purely out of spite and good bookkeeping instincts.
Ritty sold the rights in 1881, and from there the business evolved into the National Manufacturing Company, which was renamed in 1884 as the National Cash Register Company (NCR). NCR went on to dominate the cash register market worldwide, and its machines became a fixture in shops everywhere, especially in the years following World War I. Remarkably, the company is still around today, simply as NCR.
The model I'm recreating is a gorgeous example of the brass-and-wood machines from this era, hand-crank operated, ornately engraved, and equipped with a built-in printer that produced paper receipts for customers. It's the kind of object that was as much a piece of furniture and craftsmanship as it was a functional tool, and I'm excited to capture that character in a game-ready 3D asset.
