This small prop consists of two rollers through which blank pieces of paper are fed, to come out printed as genuine bills. According to Bart Whaley, the first form of this prop seems to be “The Marvelous Printing Machine”, marketed by W. & F. Hamley in their 1882 catalog; see Whaley's Encyclopedic Dictionary of Magic, 1988, p. 458. An early description of the trick and the construction of the apparatus appears in Scientific American, Feb. 11, 1893, p. 84; later reprinted in Albert A,. Hopkins's Magic, 1897, p. 381.

In 1954, U. F. Grant came out with a Flat Model Money Maker, which featured a single roller; see Genii, Vol. 19 No. 1, Sep. 1954, p. 4.