FORUM

I learnt only recently of an excellent website relating to Cox's Gold Sovereign changers etc from Gameswat that would also interest Sweetmeats if he is not already aware of it: http://ftldesign.com/Cox/index.html Cox’s 1907 Gold Changer and 1890s Tills - FTL Design The British censuses of 1891 and 1...

Here's a link to the auction catalogue: https://hibid.com/catalog/162686/31st-march/?g=all-categories&cpage=3 That's where I got my photos from which is why they are such small files. I did photograph the Cox's tall model sovereign changer before from the owner. Who it was, I've forgotten as it ...

Last Sunday a collectables auction, that contained quite a number of coin operated machines, was held in Wandin North, a country town about an hour’s drive from Melbourne. Most of the items were from one vendor and were bought by a floor bidder for quite interesting prices particularly for the 1930s...

I am not suggesting that they are exactly the same designs, but to me they seem to be the work of the same designer and are a reworking of material that he or she has previously used on the cash registers. Other people may not agree.

As Gameswat writes, these machines turn up regularly in Australia. One has turned up recently here in Victoria in quite good condition with playing cards for symbols. Some were beautifully plated in a Florentine Bronze finish. I'll attach a couple of photos of a Chicago Cash Register Company's cash ...

Absolutely stunning. Not only are the machines so ingeniously well made and work so well with the balls but the videos are also, with clear and well placed captions to make them easy to follow. I'm totally blown away by these, impressive work beyond belief. And nice to see the progression over the y...

Larry Bieza, who has done an enormous amount of research on the other coin op machines of the International Mutoscope Company as well as the Mutoscope is bringing out the book at some time in the future. It will include some of my material on the Mutoscope reel machines. My work on this ceased quite...

I have not previously contributed to this topic as I was interested to see what others might contribute describing their experiences. Gameswat has well described and illustrated the differences between the two reels available. A bit of personal history might provide some additional information of in...

A great job indeed, thanks for sharing.

This machine lacking parts of mechanism and cabinet has come up on ebay here item no 123545602887. Interesting in that it is an early Australian four reel poker machine.

Having had time to read the text of the patent properly it does seem that Gameswat is right and The Convicts is a working model and not Matthewson's lost machine. I'm afraid I was sucked in by the similarity to the appearance of the front of the working model and the drawing by Mathewson's step gran...

Thanks Mr Pennymachines for the patent. Perhaps when Gameswat has read it in full he'll agree that it could well be the machine. From the photos it looks to me like The Convicts (which is one of the names that Matthewson considered giving it) is about the size and thickness of an Allwin/Wineasy. I d...

Way back on page 6 of this topic I contributed the following: The other is a much later patent, 196,650, 1922 “Improvements in Coin Operated Machines”. This is a comparatively simpler mechanism and cabinet than Matthewson’s other coin op machines in a wooden cabinet, for a game called “Police Statio...

Here's a picture of a Climbing Monkeys machine in Oz with what I imagine was its original artwork.

Looks like my previous posting suggesting its Love Test origins was a bit premature, as I had never seen an Oracle. It certainly does have the look of a Bradfort machine.

Looks like a conversion of a Bradfort Love Test to me. Here's a photo of one I had with what would probably been the original top part of my machine which had been converted to a single coin entry in the bottom half of the machine.

Australian "Tanners" might be expensive as they did have a silver content right to the end but the sixpenny coin was replaced by the 5 cent coin which is still in use to this day. It is regularly minted and is exactly the same size and thickness as the sixpenny coin but does not contain an...

A couple of Harper floor standing 4 column cigarette vending machines found their way to Australia. I don't know if any were operated here to vend cigarettes though, as I saw these for sale at antique dealers many years ago. I think that the antique dealers bought them in the UK to sell here in thei...

The Bousche scales had a lovely art deco design but the mechanism wasn’t so great and they weren’t very accurate. Consequently they were operated in New South Wales where the government weights and scales department checked scales in shops selling food etc., but not personal weighing machines. So Bo...

Here's a copy of the Shelspeshel Australian patent.