George Bevins

Newspaper photograph of Bevins's motor-driven dynamo and battery apparatus that was alleged to output 20% more power than was input.

George Bevins was an American coal dealer based in Terre Haute, Indiana who, according to 1914 newspaper reports, claimed the development of a perpetual motion machine consisting of a motor-driven dynamo that charged a storage battery that, in turn, powers the motor, this circuit, by some unspecified addition, alleged to produce an output of twenty percent more power than was initially put into the system.

Press Coverage

• "PERPETUAL MOTION PROBLEM 'SOLVED' AGAIN — COAL DEALER DOES IT.", Day Book (Chicago, IL): 11, 19 Feb. 1914, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-02-19/ed-1/seq-11/ 
• "Candid Chats", Power: 452, 31 Mar. 1914, https://books.google.com/books?id=lMc6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA452, "George Bevins, a coal dealer of Terre Haute, is working to put himself and the other members of his ilk out of a job. He has a perpetual-motion machine. A motor drives a dynamo, the dynamo charges a storage battery, the storage battery runs the motor, the motor the dynamo, and so the circuit is complete, only that somehow in the process some twenty per cent. more power is available than first left the storage battery. The public prints of Terre Haute assert that he has been working on this 'scheme' for fifteen years. The word 'scheme' is well used. Mr. Bevins is fooling the public, himself, or both."