This is a Johnson fare box from the 1950s. It was entirely manual. When a passenger dropped a coin or token into the receptacle at the top, the driver pressed the lever seen on the right just below the glass, and the round doohickey with the knob on it just below the lever went round and round (it drives the coin sorter). Each time the driver pressed the lever, the fare counter added one to the fare count, so if ten people got on at a stop, the driver pressed the lever ten times. Occasionally a coin jammed the mechanism and the driver had to use the knob to manually rotate the round doohickey and free the coin.