Trans-Lux
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| Public company | |
| Traded as | OTCQB: |
| Industry | Manufacturing, High technology |
| Founded | 1920 |
| Headquarters | New York City |
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Key people
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J. M. Allain, President & CEO |
| Products | See complete products listing. |
| Revenue |
 $23.5 million USD (2015) |
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Number of employees
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100 (2016) |
| Website | www |
Trans-Lux is a company that specializes in designing, selling, leasing and maintaining multi-color, real-time data and LED large-screen electronic information displays, but is primarily known as a major supplier of national stock ticker display devices for . These indoor and outdoor displays are used worldwide in many industries including financial, banking, gaming, corporate, retail, healthcare, sports and transportation.
The company was created by Percy Norman Furber, an Englishman, who moved to the United States in October 1918, after a time spent drilling for oil and mining quicksilver in Mexico. Furber was interested in developing a projection system that could be used in a lighted room, and enlisted the aid of a friend, Arthur Payne, a former employee of Thomas Edison. Payne hit upon the idea of rear projection; projecting an image through a screen rather than on it. However, this concept required a finer and more translucent material for the screen than any that currently existed.
In 1920, Furber formed American Lux (Latin for "light") Products, and three years later, using a fine high-quality natural silk, it created its first successful screen, with initial sales going mostly to schools and churches. It was only after a visit to the that Furber saw a truly profitable application for rear projection. At the time, obtained the latest stock quotes, provided by Western Union's telegraph, or wire service, from a glass dome-topped ticker. The machine printed the results onto a long thin piece of paper known as a ticker tape, with the brokers closest to the printer having the advantage. Prior to this invention, any stock information was hand-written, usually on a chalk board; although the results were less immediate, they were better displayed. Furber combined the best aspects of both methods: by enlarging the stock quotations from the running ticker tape and displaying them onto a rear projection screen. In 1923, the company installed the first "Movie ticker" ticker tape projection system at the New York Stock Exchange. Like every ticker of the time it was a mechanical format, but by using yellow dots on a black background it gave the illusion of electronically generated green letters and numbers.
It is this stock ticker that provided the company's name: "Trans-Lux" meaning "moving light".
Financing this new operation required more capital, so Furber took his company public on August 26, 1925. It was listed on the New York Curb Exchange, which later became the . Until being delisted in 2011 Trans-Lux stock was the oldest company to be listed on the American Stock Exchange. In 1925, the company had 41 installations on stock exchange floors and brokerage house boardrooms throughout the country.
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Wikipedia