Abstract: An improved counter for documents, currency, paper money, sheets or the like achieves low weight, low power consumption, low cost and high counting accuracy by a feeding mechanism in which a first roller or set of rollers successively feeds a sheet from the bottom of a stack thereof to a second roller or set of rollers for further feeding, on a sheet-by-sheet basis, to a pair of pulling rollers which pulls each sheet at high speed and dispenses it. The first and second rollers or sets of rollers have about their respective peripheries portions having a large coefficient of friction and portions having a small coefficient of friction. Such intermittent feed rollers are synchronized to rotate with related space phases, i.e. with the low friction coefficient portion of each roller in contact with its associated sheet at the same time, thus assuring that the pulling rollers require minimal torque to pull each sheet away from the second of the intermittent rollers.

Abstract: By utilizing first and second spaced, joined, co-axial disks with coin-receiving peripheral openings, such disks being separated from each other in the region of said peripheral openings by a fixed ring member having an opening therethrough to permit the passage of coins from the peripheral openings in said first disk to the peripheral openings in said second disk, said first and second disks rotating in unison at a first speed, and a third co-axial disk rotating at a higher speed than said first and second disks and positioned parallel to and adjacent to the second disk whereby coins falling in the peripheral openings of said second disk are urged outwardly by the relative motion of said second and third disks, to contact a rim member having openings of graduated width therethrough corresponding to the diameters of different coins; those different coins may be effectively and accurately separated or sorted into respective types or denominations.