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| Mills Dewey Upright Glass |
My wife Jenny recently posted a blog about a Mills Dewey upright slot machine that we are restoring. During the restoration process we have ran into a number of interesting details about the machine. I thought I would share some of these “finds” about this specific machine and the Mills Novelty Dewey slot machine in general.
In the fall of 1899 Mills Novelty of Chicago, IL introduced
two 6-way slot machines, one called the Chicago and one the Dewey. Both of
these machines allowed the player to bet on 6 different colors, hence the name
6-way machine. Mills also made the Owl, a 5-way and the Duplex, a 10-way in the
large floor standing style as well.
It has been said that Mills intended the Dewey to actually
be named the Puck. A competing company, Caille-Schiemer named a machine the
Puck in 1898. This machine for Caille was a 6-way and turned out to be quite successful
for them. In the tradition of the industry at that time, Mills was simply going
to copy the name for their new 6-way machine. The name Puck was taken from a
magazine called the Puck Weekly, which was a popular humor magazine at the
time.
Just as Mills was getting ready to roll their two 6-way
machines out to the market, Admiral George Dewey came back to America in
September 1899 as a huge war hero. Capitalizing on his fame Mills decided to
name their new machine the Dewey rather than Puck. The admiral’s likeness would
actually appear on thousands of products during the early 20th
Century. Other slot machine manufactures would also name their own upright
models Dewey as well. The Mills Novelty Dewey turned out to be a great sales success. Initially the Dewey was only available in 5c play but as production went on, Mills made everything from 5c to dollars. Mills Novelty made the Dewey in a large number of variations from 1899 clear into the 1930’s! Brand new Mills Dewey machines could actually be ordered in late 1932.
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| MIlls Dewey Inspection Tag |
One of the rare but special treats with any slot machine is
an inspection tag on the inside indicating when it was made. Many times these pieces
of paper came off over time or were covered over with dirt and oil. When this
machine came in we were quite excited to see that the original tag is still present.
As shown above, the machine was
inspected on April 16th, 1903, making it 109 years old in a few days
from writing this blog. The machines serial number of 11004 is also present in
multiple locations including the tag.
As mentioned earlier, Mills started offering the Dewey in
nickel though dollar soon after 1899. This particular machine accepts quarters.
Rather than simply putting 25c on the coin head, Mills decided to make the
Dewey machines that accept quarters a little different. As shown directly
above, the ornate cast iron coin head had Two Bits cast into it.
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| Mills Dewey Coin Head - Two Bits |
Many people today, over 100 years after this machine was
made, wouldn’t have a clue what Two Bits means or what the two images on the
center wheel are. (To be honest, it wasn’t that long ago that I wouldn’t have
known what these various images and phrases were either.) The term Bits, when
talking about money, is a way of saying 1/8 of a dollar – at least in the
United States it does. Since there isn’t a 1/8 dollar coin many people would
refer to a quarter as Two Bits. While it’s not a common term today, it’s wasn’t
that obscure in 1903.
As for the images on the wheel, unless you are into horse riding
or equestrian sports, like me, you probably have no idea what they are. First,
they are not symbols for some secret organization or part of the Mayan calendar
predicting the end of the word in 2012. What they are is a pair of horse bits.
Like a good magic trick, the truth is usually a lot less cool than the
imagination initially conceives, unless you are really into horses……
At the turn of the century most people used horses for their
primary mode of transportation. Like cars today, most people can relate to
common tools associated with a car. The images of two horse bits and the
wording Two Bits on the coin entry of the machine made it obvious to most
people in 1903 that this was a quarter slot machine. Today I bet many people
would have no clue what kind of coin to put into this machine.
Another fantastic
feature we found that I will go into more detail in a later blog posting is the
fact this machine had a music box in it. By incorporating music into the machine,
it would sometimes skirt gambling laws in parts of the country. The idea was to
give the person a catchy song for their quarter, while also happening to be
gambling at the same time. This put the machine into a gray area in some
locations, allowing it to operate. When we received the machine it had its
music box removed, but the details and clues were obvious inside the machine
that one was present originally. We have located an original music box that
will be re-incorporated into this machine.
Slot machine manufactures were always battling with gray
anti-gambling laws in parts of the United States. These musical upright slot
machines were the first to try and complicate those laws. Around 1910 and even
a little earlier slot machines started adding gum and candy vender attachments.
Rather than installing very expensive music boxes, these candy venders were much
cheaper and did the same trick – confusing the law so the slot machine could
operate a little longer while lawyers figured it all out.
As we progress further with the detailed restoration we will
post more photos and details. Luckily our restoration and repair business has
been so good in 2011 and 2012 that it has been difficult to find time to work
on our own machines, but we will keep you updated! – Don Creekmore
