Mills Hi Top working on R+W tokens

[alan57]

Just acquired my next project, a Mills Hi Top working on R+W tokens.

Just a few questions before I start taking it apart

Was the R+W token a replacement for the old sixpence as the diameter looks to be the same? Was it to do with the gambling laws at that time that the coinage was changed for tokens?

If it was a replacement, would the coin slides designed for the old sixpence or the American dime? The machine came with about 30 tokens.

Also would I be right in thinking there are some upper fingers missing? There are 8 with 2 spaces. Would it have originally had 10?

[coppinpr]

Firstly do you want any R&W tokens? I have over 1000 to sell very cheap.

The token is almost but not exactly the same as a 6d, so much so machines will usually run on either, although I find some tokens do reject.

I remember the tokens in use but not really as a way of getting 'round gaming laws, I remember them as payouts in exchange for goods. It also gave the operator the option to sell you the tokens at any value he wanted but keep the machine on the same slides. He could sell you tokens at 12 for a shilling or 1 for a pound, it was up to him. It was also a cheap way of converting machines from LSD to decimal but, as I remember it, this was not popular with the public.

The missing fingers are not necessarily missing, it probably simply reflects your machines set up (your payouts don't require the additional fingers), if it's paying correct then there are the correct number.

The slides are almost certainly 6d slides.

[alan57]

Thanks Paul for the info, if the slides are for the 6d, then I think I will use that coinage instead of the R+W tokens.

Is the sequence for the upper fingers from right to left -
1- cherry, 2- orange, 3 - plumb, 4 - bell, 5 - melon, 6 - bar and 7 and 8 the mystery payout.

Also I've noticed that a bracket is missing that connects to the control arm near the clock (that regulates the braking sequence) to the coin slides. Was this only on machines that had a jackpot?

[malcymal]

Two ways to work out which payout forks match the symbol payouts.

At the bottom of the fingers (or forks) (visible to bottom right next to payout slides, you will see the cutouts on them). The larger cutout matches the 2 coin payout as it would only actuate one coin slide. Then the cutouts gradually decrease in side as they have to push the coin slides, so 4, 8, 10, etc.

Other way is to simply line up the reels by hand into a winning combination and watch which fork flies through the payout discs next to the reel bundle. So spin the reels, line up the melons, say, which fork goes through all the 3 payout discs, this fork would then in your case be the 20 win and so on. Some machines have a rod at the front which you can pull forward to stop the clock fan thus allowing you to easily line up reels, or simply stop the clock with a screwdriver/wooden batton.

You have seven payout forks/fingers as you have seven winning types, (2,5),(8),(10),(14),(18) and 2 * 20 (the cherry 2 and 5 win uses only one fork). The mystery win will likely be a ten win, often combination of orange, melons and bars. These combinations could be O,O,M O,M,O, O,M,B (O for orange, M for melon, B for bar).

[coppinpr]

Sounds like the bracket you're missing is the jackpot reset bar which doesn't connect to the slide area or in fact any area, it simply pushes against another bracket on the JP every time the machine cycles to close the JP if needed.

[alan57]

Thanks for the information.

[treefrog]

I may be one of the few who like the old tokens. Common in our youth and as stated used to be within the limit of laws and licensing. Have quite a few machines including Hi Tops I have left with their token awards or denominators. Also the variations in tokens is huge. Don't assume for example a 6D sized token are all the same size, they can vary by marginal degrees in diameter I assume to help distinguish one from another vendor or supplier. I suspect people would not want where possible their use moved from one venue to another. It is surprising how much you can change the diameter (smaller) and it still works. Also holes in the centre were common, even seen different shaped holes.

[malcymal]

Out of curiosity, when you talk of holes in the middle of the token, were the holes used to detect in some way a token from a coin? e.g at some point when a coin detector pin travelled through the hole, it could work out the difference?!?!

When I picked up a monstrous Sega Continental, it had two coin detector pins spaced apart and probed the coins in the escalator. Although I didn't have tokens, all 6d coins leaving the escalator were directed to the coin box and not the coin tube. I assume that tokens somehow were directed back into the payout tube. It had some gubbins on it that appeared to throw a gate across the coin tube entry to direct coins down into the cash box rather than the tube. Never bothered to work out how it worked but disabled it. Maybe they just used to hand fill the tube with tokens but reckon on that being quite laborious.

[coppinpr]

Yes that's right, a lot of machines were able to sort tokens from coins by using the hole. It was often used so that payouts were exclusively tokens exchangeable for goods while all coins went safely into the operator's pocket. Another reason the tokens were made with a hole was simply so you couldn't use them at all on a machine that used a a thin pointed type of coin detector, (if the machine used an escalator it didn't reject the token... it kept it without giving you a go!) This allowed the operator to issue tokens at the desk only usable on some of his machines while his coin-only machines stayed clear of tokens.

[malcymal]

Thank you coppinpr for a most intuitive answer, fascinating. The designers of our mechanical marvels were ingenious people.

[alan57]

The payout slides are definitely for the token and not the sixpence, the tokens fit perfectly in the slides.
Would the slides have originally been made for an American coinage? and the tokens made to measure at a later date?
I'm having to take apart every part and clean, progress is slow, but you know what, I'm enjoying every minute of it. I've learned such a lot on how these machines actually work and seeing how each part fits together.