Officer, This isn’t a slot machine!

It’s a gum vending fortune teller with buttons to test your skill with a sign telling you how much will come out before you play & a note on the machine saying “no gambling allowed”!

From almost the very beginning of slot machines being used in the United States, they have had to disguise themselves as something else. In today’s world of casino’s with thousands of slot machines lined up it’s almost unbelievable that there was a time when a slot machine in a normal public place had to be disguised, at least to the strict letter of that law that is.

The image above of a very rare Watling Big Six cast iron machine is a classic early example of a machine utilizing a gum vender attachment. Watling didn’t just decide to add this vender on the side as a nice gesture to players. They did this to hopefully slip this machine into an area where a straight gambling device may have been illegal, but one that gave the player a stick of gum or roll of mint for every nickel played then made it a vending device – it just happened to payout money as well.

While most anyone could see past this technicality, when it comes to the law, this changed things and put these types of machines into a gray area of legality. From the turn of the 20^th century into the 1930’s slot machine manufactures were not only bolting on gum venders to their machines but also adding other little features that further confused law enforcement.

 During the teens the Caille Brothers Company made a beautiful slot machine called the Victory Bell. One feature shown in the photo above to the left of the reels is something called a “future pay” option. Every time the handle was pulled you could look at the window and would either see the word NO or numbers, such as 4. If there was a number showing, then all you had to do was put another coin into the machine and that many coins would drop into the payout cup!

What was happening was the machine would delay any payouts until the next pull of the handle. The machine would show how many coins were coming out of the machine on that next pull. The theory was, the player walking up to the machine knew in advance if any money was coming out of the machine – hence the name “future pay”. This little feature also forced a player to put another coin into the machine to get their winnings from the previous pull – tricky idea for sure!

Most of the slot manufactures offered the future pay options for their machines in the teens and nineteen twenties. Today when a machine with the future pay option is found, in many cases the mechanical components have been removed. Operators and players alike probably became annoyed by it or the machine no longer needed the feature to operate in an area.

Mills Baseball Restored By Nations Attic.com

Mills Novelty during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s made a machine shown above called the Baseball Vender Bell. This machine really went all out to disguise itself as a baseball arcade game rather than what it was – a slot machine. This beauty was restored by Nations Attic in 2011 and is a true classic for both slot machine collectors and baseball fans.

This slot machine hid itself behind a brightly painted baseball field. A player would put a nickel in, pull the handle and wait for the baseball images on the reels to stop. Once the machine stopped, the player would look at the future pay window to see if their next play would give them any coins, they could also play a simulated game of baseball by moving the players from base to base on the play field below. The score outs and innings could also be kept track of for players wanting to complete an entire nine inning game (hope they had a lot of nickels). This machine didn’t stop there, it also vended mints. By turning the handle at the lower front right an entire roll of mints would drop into the payout tray – how nice of Mills! Not to be out done, Mills also had three buttons at the top called skill stop buttons. The player could actually stop the reels early exactly when they wanted too in an effort to use their skill to play the machine!

So, to summarize, in 1930 you walk up to this machine and drop a nickel in. You pull the handle, then test your skill with the skill stop buttons, check the future pay window to see if you won anything (in the future), then turn the vender knob for a roll of delicious mints (in reality they were nasty), then figure out what sequence of events just happened in the simulated game of baseball you are playing.

To say the least it would take an entire corporate law firm to legally figure out if this machine was a gambling device, mint vender, fortune teller, baseball game or skill device – which is exactly why Mills and other companies loaded these machines up with gimmicks during the early 1930’s!

The Watling Scale Company even put on their Treasury slot machine a little sign cast into the machine – NO GAMBLING ALLOWED ON THIS MACHINE. Just below that stern warning was a second message which we will decipher for you

“by the way, if you deposit a second coin into this gambling device before pulling the handle in hopes of winning the jackpot and bringing home a pocket full of buffalo nickels, your extra coin will be returned to you so you can gamble again”.

American history is full of examples of enterprising entrepreneurs figuring out a way to get around goofy or strict laws to provide the public with a product or service they greatly desire. Slot machines, a true American invention, are no exception!

Jennings Little Duke With Gum Vender & Fortune Reels

Vintage Mills Novelty Posters Available

Recently we turned up some really interesting old paper from the Mills Novelty Company. The engraving and art work on some of the paper were so amazing we decided to have some posters professionally printed. Two of the posters images date to 1908 and the third is from 1927.

Finding old advertising material from any of the slot machines companies from before World War 2 is quite difficult – especially in color! Over the years we have seen and found some really neat letters, catalogs and even posters from Mills Novelty, Pace, Watling, O.D. Jennings and various smaller companies. Since Mills Novelty was the largest company in the industry, their material tends to be high quality and very attractive.

 Below are images of the three posters. We have made them in a small 12”X32” size and a limited amount in a large 24”x64” size. The smalls are $32.50 each or $90 for all three, which does include shipping within the US. The large posters are $67.50 each. These can also be purchased on our web site at www.nationsattic.com/antiqueslotmachineforsale.html

We are always interesting in purchasing vintage photos, letters and posters associated with the coin operated industry from before 1950. Please email me at slots@nationsattic.com or call 316-371-1828.

Mills Novelty Special Gum Vender Liberty Bell Restoration - Best of 2011

Nations Attic performs quite a few restorations on antique slot machines in the course of a year. Alot of the machines are classics from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Sometimes the owners will share with us the stories behind the machine and why they are having it restored.

My personal favorite story and machine to restore this past year (2011) was a rare 1911 Mills Special Gum Vender Liberty Bell. Cast iron slot machines and trade stimulators from before World War 1 are rare. It’s always a treat to handle one and study how they were made.

 

Earlier in the year we had a gentleman in Oklahoma contact us about restoring this machine. The photos above show the condition it was in when it arrived in our shop. While not in horrible condition, it had been painted over with an orange paint, the mechanism was seized up and broken in 3 spots, the award frame was bolted to the lower front casting and the curved glass was missing.

While these early machines are smaller than examples from the 1930’s and 1940’s – they are heavier! Apparently the owner had been using this piece of American cast iron history as a weight in the back of his truck when it iced and snowed! While it did serve this purpose well, he decided to check with us to see if this machine had any value or not.

After checking with us about its value and restoration costs, he decided to bring to our shop in Wichita, Kansas and have it restored. He then invested in some sand bags to put in the back of his truck for weight rather than using a 100 year old slot machine, ha ha! All kidding aside, the owner is a wonderful guy with a great family story regarding the machine and reasons for having it restored.

The Mills Novelty Special Gum Vender Liberty Bell is a really great looking machine. It is one of the very first three reel slot machines made. When Mills Novelty came out with their Operator Bell & Liberty Bell machines in 1910 they knew they had a hit on their hands. So in 1911 they made a version of the Liberty Bell that vended rolls of mints. This machine originally had a mint vender attached to the left side of the cabinet. In almost every case the side vender attachment is missing, as it is in this case. This is also why the lower front of the machine appears to be a billboard for Liberty Bell Gum-Fruit 5c packages!

After taking the old paint off the castings, polishing and having them re-nickel plated all of the details came alive! The early mechanism with its simple form was actually more challenging to work on since Mills had not developed all the user friendly features that are common on 1930’s machines. With all the usual restoration details attended to, this machine will live on – just not in the back of a pick-up truck!

We have included some photos of this historic machine after restoration below. While the machine turned out looking great it was even better to present it to the owner and re-unite this piece of American history with the family!

Slot Machine Bug Sighting!

Just a few days after posting the story about the slot machine bugs, we had a Mills 7-7-7 High Top come into the shop infected with one of the little buggers! Above is a photo of the mechanism and a close-up of the bug in action!

This bug was placed on the 2^nd reel, preventing one of the jackpot bars to be landed on. This machine will still line-up three bars but the odds of hitting a jackpot are really bad now. That’s probably also why we found lots of Mercury dimes from the 1940’s still inside the machine – no one could win them back once they went into the jackpot compartment!

Bugs In My Antique Slot Machine?

When I first got interested in antique slot machines I would bring them home and my wife would always say; “there better not be any bugs in that thing!”. At that time she naturally assumed that since it was old, there had to be nasty creatures living inside it. Being the good husband that I am I would dutifully take the vacuum and clean out the machine before bringing it into our home. What I didn’t know at the time was that some of those machines would still have a bug inside, but the bug wasn’t the creepy crawly kind – but a mechanical bug that was much more mischievous and sinister!

As I started working on machines and restoring them in detail I would run across a strange little device that seemingly had no purpose. It almost looked like it has clamped itself onto the reel bundle of the machine and wouldn’t let go! The first one of these strange little mechanical creatures I found was on a 1929 Mills Poinsettia machine.

Initially while testing the machine I never even noticed its presence – why would I? However after manually lining up the reels to trigger a payout on the machine I would notice the third reel would never stop on the jackpot image. Now it should be mentioned that most Mills slot machines of this era had what is called a 10 stop mechanism – meaning only half of the images you see on the reels are “live” or can actually be landed on. So, after determining which of the two jackpot symbols on the third reel is real, I still couldn’t get the machine to land on it, even when I held the reel in place!

So why in the world would Mills make a machine that wouldn’t land on the jackpot symbol? The answer is they didn’t, but other people would make a clever little device that could be installed inside the machine in seconds – eliminating those pesky jackpots from ever being hit on the machine! With about 2 cents worth of metal the machines odds of hitting a jackpot would go from 8000 to 1 to zero, and no one playing the machine knew the difference.

As I worked on more antique slot machines and then made it my full time profession in 2005 I would occasionally run across these nasty yet interesting little devices, and still do today. During that time I also ran across vintage gambling supply brochures and books. In some of these sales brochures they would openly list for sale “Percentage Devices”. Well that doesn’t sound too threating or something that sounds morally questionable does it? As it turns out those “devices” were bugs – small parts that once installed would magically not allow specific symbols on the reels to ever be landed on – how rotten!

Interestingly enough, the industry trade suppliers sold these without really trying to hide it. Granted, coin operated machine operators of the day didn’t exactly advertise to the general public how their machines worked or how easily they could be manipulated to lower the winning payouts.

During the Golden Age of slot machines (1931 – 1942) a vast majority of slots were not being used in casino’s where rules and tight scrutiny were present. Most slot machines were found in gas stations, bars, clubs and other common places men hung out at. These places didn’t have state gaming commissions checking their machines for proper payout percentages.

Sometime last year I had the pleasure of briefly talking to an elderly gentleman who operated slot machines in California in the 1940’s and 1950’s. He asked me if I knew what an Oregon Boot was? I didn’t know what he was talking about until he described to me a bug! He said the “syndicate” he was working for would use them on all their machines. The “syndicate” he worked for apparently didn’t care if they were screwing the players. I got the feeling these little “Oregon Boot’s” were a fairly minor ethical infraction compared to other stories he would go on to tell me!

So, the next time you are playing your favorite antique slot machine and notice those darn jackpot bars never lining up – you may want to remember my wife’s first rule before bringing a slot machine in the house – MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO BUGS IN THAT THING! Ha ha