Bryans Clock with fruit dial

[coino777]

Is this a very rare version of a Bryans Clock with one hand and fruit style face or just a badly restored machine that went wong?

[bryansjim]

Hi,
I spoke to a Bryans collector at an auction, a few years ago now. He told me he had one of these. This is the first one I have seen. There is nothing metioned on Melvyn Wright's Bryans site about this style of clock. The paper clock dial looks good. The bar symbol looks like Bryans version of the bars on one armed bandits.

Personally I like it!

[grabber]

Hello, I think I have seen this machine in a photocopied Bryan's machine catalogue. Can't find it at the moment but I think it's called Roto Fruit? Maybe I'm wrong, but it looked like a real machine, not a fake.

[john t peterson]

I can attest that this is a "real" Clock by Bryans. By that, I mean that I personally saw this machine in 2001 in Los Angeles when I purchased the Glenn Collection. Since I already owned a 12 Win, I did not purchase this game. At the time, I was bowled over by the diversity of the other 60 plus games comprising the collection. I was under the impression then that this was just another Clock with an after-market face. In view of the discussion so far, I may have been wrong. I wish I had taken a closer look. Perhaps the chap who purchased it off Ebay this week can enlighten us as I see he lives in Great Britain. Your loyal Yankee correspondent.

[cheeky]

I can't add much to this debate but I can confirm that I have seen about a dozen or so over the past ten years... and yes they all had different cases and no, I didn't see the same one 12 times!

[pennymachines]

Here's another example plus a Bryans factory pic supplied by Bryansfan to prove the Fruit clock wasn't just an operator's revamp.

[Bent Copper]

I'm afraid that photo just adds to the confusion. That one clearly IS an operators revamp (and a very bad one at that).

The arrow is clearly home-made and you can see that the fruit symbols have just been stuck on to a standard clock face. The original clock instructions 'Big hand on red' are still there, and no longer make any sense with the new face. It doesn't match up with the 'sales photo' above either.

So at least some of these fruit clocks are revamps, if not all of them.

[pennymachines]

Yes, the one in the lower picture is obviously new paper stuck over an original clock face - so it looks like some came with fruit symbols from the factory while others were done later.

A British gambling game which didn't immediately look like a fruit machine to the authorities was the raison d'etre of the Clock. When more leniency was shown towards American bandits, the disguise could be dropped.

Bryans presumably responded by offering a fruit symbol version of the Clock which was more appealing to players already familiar with the bandits and later developed the idea into the Fruitbowl. Meanwhile, Bryans and probably others provided fruit paperwork to give the old Clocks a revamp. I've seen Clock faces supplied by Whales of Redcar (presumably to replace damaged paperwork), so they could well have printed fruit paperwork too. This also gave the operators the excuse to remove the little hand, and with it the jackpot.

[pennymachines]

Melvyn has pointed out that the b/w picture isn't a Bryan's flyer as I'd thought, but is from a Sotherby's 1987 auction catalogue. I remember the sale now (one of the first I attended).

And looking closely, I see the fruit paperwork was applied to an earlier Clock face. So we're back to the revamp theory.

[pauljt71]

Topic merged - Site Admin.

Here are some pictures of my Bryans Clock. The mechanism seems clean, although the key is VERY hard to turn to start the game. Is there a way of adjusting it?

As you will see, the dial is incorrect. Investigation has shown it has replaced the original and behind it is the movable panel that should have the payout amounts in circles that show through the holes on the numbers on the clock face....if that all makes sense.

The hands are missing and only one is installed. Does anyone have some pictures or measurements so that I can have a go at making a pair of correct hands please?