Patent Research
Re: Patent Research
Absolutely Sterling work by Sweetmeats, Gameswat and Mr Pennymachines in finding the patents for the Twist Your Grip, Try Your Grip and the Automatic Shooting Range. No wonder I could never find these patents when searching for them years ago as they were commonly stated to be Matthewson machines and that is what I searched for them as. It's great to have established who really invented and made these machines.
Other mysteries still remain to be cleared up regarding the Matthewson machines however. There is no patent for the Golf machine, most likely as Sweetmeats says, the mechanism is based on Matthewson's Football machine. However I wonder if he originally intended to design something that worked differently. Golf machines found here in Australia had a Directions plate which had no relation to the way in which the game worked (see Matthewson's incorrect Golf plate photo). Instead they all work in accordance with a later Matthewson plate and the Rowland's Golf plate which is found on the machines that have turned up in the UK. Perhaps Matthewson got the plates made in advance for what he hoped to accomplish and still used them inadvertently or perhaps he just gave the wrong instructions to the plate maker.
Little is also known about where Rowland fits into the picture. Some of this was cleared up by Bolland but his memory was astray and he also added some misconceptions to the Matthewson story. He told Jon Gresham and others that Matthewson had used a recycled aquarium as the pattern for the Yacht Race machine. I was able to scuttle this by finding the design patents for the Matthewson machines including the Yacht Race, Cricket and Football in 1988 after an incredibly tortuous search for the British design patents. These design patents are Cricket No 377195 of 1901, Mermaid Yacht Race 399522 of 1902 and wooden cased Football machine 572441 oddly taken out in 1910 when the machine was patented in 1896. One of these wooden cased Football machines exists in Australia having been brought here by a British collector some years ago.
Strangely enough I found a zinc version of the cast iron base of the mermaid machines in a country antique shop many years ago for sale for $A800 about 400 pounds. The owner of the shop was a Belgian man who imported container loads of antiques from France and Belgium. This would figure as to my knowledge zinc was not usually used in British coin op machines, but was used in coin op machines made in France, eg the chicken egg laying and negro vending machines, the electric shocker pig etc. When I went back to the shop I was told that a local lady had bought it to use in her bathroom??? Shortly after the shop disappeared so that I never got to speak to the owner about the zinc mermaid base's origins.
Further interesting concerns about Matthewson's machines relate to two more of his coin op machines, which, to my knowledge no copies of still exist anywhere. One is a very early one, British Patent No 19, 243 of 30th September 1893 for improvements in Coin or the like Operated Apparatus for Testing the Force of a Blow, a fascinating machine which is really a coin operated version of the well known Fairground Striker which fires the coin up to a bell. The other is a much later patent British Patent no 196,650 of April 23 1923 a relatively simple machine which he called Police. Does any trace of these machines exist beside the patents?
Other mysteries still remain to be cleared up regarding the Matthewson machines however. There is no patent for the Golf machine, most likely as Sweetmeats says, the mechanism is based on Matthewson's Football machine. However I wonder if he originally intended to design something that worked differently. Golf machines found here in Australia had a Directions plate which had no relation to the way in which the game worked (see Matthewson's incorrect Golf plate photo). Instead they all work in accordance with a later Matthewson plate and the Rowland's Golf plate which is found on the machines that have turned up in the UK. Perhaps Matthewson got the plates made in advance for what he hoped to accomplish and still used them inadvertently or perhaps he just gave the wrong instructions to the plate maker.
Little is also known about where Rowland fits into the picture. Some of this was cleared up by Bolland but his memory was astray and he also added some misconceptions to the Matthewson story. He told Jon Gresham and others that Matthewson had used a recycled aquarium as the pattern for the Yacht Race machine. I was able to scuttle this by finding the design patents for the Matthewson machines including the Yacht Race, Cricket and Football in 1988 after an incredibly tortuous search for the British design patents. These design patents are Cricket No 377195 of 1901, Mermaid Yacht Race 399522 of 1902 and wooden cased Football machine 572441 oddly taken out in 1910 when the machine was patented in 1896. One of these wooden cased Football machines exists in Australia having been brought here by a British collector some years ago.
Strangely enough I found a zinc version of the cast iron base of the mermaid machines in a country antique shop many years ago for sale for $A800 about 400 pounds. The owner of the shop was a Belgian man who imported container loads of antiques from France and Belgium. This would figure as to my knowledge zinc was not usually used in British coin op machines, but was used in coin op machines made in France, eg the chicken egg laying and negro vending machines, the electric shocker pig etc. When I went back to the shop I was told that a local lady had bought it to use in her bathroom??? Shortly after the shop disappeared so that I never got to speak to the owner about the zinc mermaid base's origins.
Further interesting concerns about Matthewson's machines relate to two more of his coin op machines, which, to my knowledge no copies of still exist anywhere. One is a very early one, British Patent No 19, 243 of 30th September 1893 for improvements in Coin or the like Operated Apparatus for Testing the Force of a Blow, a fascinating machine which is really a coin operated version of the well known Fairground Striker which fires the coin up to a bell. The other is a much later patent British Patent no 196,650 of April 23 1923 a relatively simple machine which he called Police. Does any trace of these machines exist beside the patents?
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20th Century Tivoli Jackpot
Topic merged - Site Admin.
Researching something else and just came upon a US Design Patent by Solomon Shefras dating 1929 that looks very close to this classic Tivoli as pictured in the Paul Braithwaite Arcades book page 5.
US D82227
And just added these pics of a Shefras Tivoli token I found which would confirm they probably did make this machine.
Researching something else and just came upon a US Design Patent by Solomon Shefras dating 1929 that looks very close to this classic Tivoli as pictured in the Paul Braithwaite Arcades book page 5.
US D82227
And just added these pics of a Shefras Tivoli token I found which would confirm they probably did make this machine.
Last edited by gameswat on Wed Jun 17, 2015 11:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Patent Research
Very interesting Gameswat, not least because I currently own the machine above. There's a bit of a mystery here, because the British coin-op inventor, EC Bignell (who resided in Paris) filed a patent around the same time for an identical game: GB332881.
What's more, there is another version of the machine, which I suspected was French-made because it is so much more decorative. The one below came up for sale in the States a few years ago and there's another pictured on page 61 of Arcadia Slot Machines of Europe & America. Baudot says it's British, "possibly Chubbs Automatics", but doesn't say why he thinks that.
Disappointingly, the only Solomon Shefras patent in the European database is GB324474 for a 1930s towel dispenser and a 1933 German patent for an "automatic cash processing dynamometer" (presumably the famous Shefras punch bag machine): DE543244. Just to throw us off, it's listed as "SALOMON SHEFRAS".
What's more, there is another version of the machine, which I suspected was French-made because it is so much more decorative. The one below came up for sale in the States a few years ago and there's another pictured on page 61 of Arcadia Slot Machines of Europe & America. Baudot says it's British, "possibly Chubbs Automatics", but doesn't say why he thinks that.
Disappointingly, the only Solomon Shefras patent in the European database is GB324474 for a 1930s towel dispenser and a 1933 German patent for an "automatic cash processing dynamometer" (presumably the famous Shefras punch bag machine): DE543244. Just to throw us off, it's listed as "SALOMON SHEFRAS".
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Re: Patent Research
By the way - I'm thinking it might make more sense to create another Forum category for patent research, so different lines of enquiry don't get mixed up. What think you folk?
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Re: Patent Research
Sweetmeats gave me some patent numbers to chase up. Some are probably already listed.
GB190010614 Pessers, Pickwick type
GB190023431 Pessers, Pickwick type
GB189919610 Pessers, tivoli type
GB190120838 Ell, Crackshot
GB190813722 Ell, Skittles
GB19128005 Matthweson, artillery
GB190019196 Haydon & Urry, Barrels
GB189421756 Haydon & Urry, Barrels
GB109488 Jofeh, tivoli billiards (Domino)
GB191406789 Flory, Handan Ni 4 ball Lion head catcher
GB190201196 Jofeh, Spirometer
GB189808338 kinetoscope
GB189901572 Mutoscope
GB190318478 Force testing
GB173135 Ahrens, improvements to force testing
GB189923815 Humphris, original version of Smithy
No 8796 of 1893, Robbins cast iron target shooter: Not Found
And some others I found while researching Shefras:
US2079000 US patent for Bernard Brenner/Philip Shefras Multiplay bandit
GB1151426 Morris Shefras coin validator
GB1140302 Morris Shefras escalator substitute
GB1181452 Morris Shefras bingo machine (not coin-op).
DE543244 German patent for Solomon Shefras Punchball
GB190010614 Pessers, Pickwick type
GB190023431 Pessers, Pickwick type
GB189919610 Pessers, tivoli type
GB190120838 Ell, Crackshot
GB190813722 Ell, Skittles
GB19128005 Matthweson, artillery
GB190019196 Haydon & Urry, Barrels
GB189421756 Haydon & Urry, Barrels
GB109488 Jofeh, tivoli billiards (Domino)
GB191406789 Flory, Handan Ni 4 ball Lion head catcher
GB190201196 Jofeh, Spirometer
GB189808338 kinetoscope
GB189901572 Mutoscope
GB190318478 Force testing
GB173135 Ahrens, improvements to force testing
GB189923815 Humphris, original version of Smithy
No 8796 of 1893, Robbins cast iron target shooter: Not Found
And some others I found while researching Shefras:
US2079000 US patent for Bernard Brenner/Philip Shefras Multiplay bandit
GB1151426 Morris Shefras coin validator
GB1140302 Morris Shefras escalator substitute
GB1181452 Morris Shefras bingo machine (not coin-op).
DE543244 German patent for Solomon Shefras Punchball
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Re: Patent Research
Sweetmeats recently purchased some printed patents of early coin machines and kindly gave me the numbers to look up at Espacenet.com.
The first one, GB189811824 Tug of War, George Edward Tate & Walter Henry Godfrey, 1899, was already in our archive, but I've added the others to the Patents database.
Most weird and wonderful is PAT. No. GB190015882, Beverage (and tuberculosis) vending spirometer, Arthur Samuel Williams, 1901.
PAT. No. GB190015882 Prize vending shooting game, Edward Geisler Herbert, 1900
PAT. No. GB190015882 Tivoli/Bagatelle type, Charles Hermann Muller (New Polyphon Supply), 1900
PAT. No. GB190015882 Tivoli/Bagatelle type, Charles Hermann Muller (New Polyphon Supply), 1900
PAT. No. GB190015882 Skill game with balls on roulette-like table, Harry Geen Bucknell, 1899
PAT. No. GB190015882 Coin-freed racing game, Charles Middlebrook, 1900
The first one, GB189811824 Tug of War, George Edward Tate & Walter Henry Godfrey, 1899, was already in our archive, but I've added the others to the Patents database.
Most weird and wonderful is PAT. No. GB190015882, Beverage (and tuberculosis) vending spirometer, Arthur Samuel Williams, 1901.
PAT. No. GB190015882 Prize vending shooting game, Edward Geisler Herbert, 1900
PAT. No. GB190015882 Tivoli/Bagatelle type, Charles Hermann Muller (New Polyphon Supply), 1900
PAT. No. GB190015882 Tivoli/Bagatelle type, Charles Hermann Muller (New Polyphon Supply), 1900
PAT. No. GB190015882 Skill game with balls on roulette-like table, Harry Geen Bucknell, 1899
PAT. No. GB190015882 Coin-freed racing game, Charles Middlebrook, 1900
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Re: Patent Research
Hello all, long time without post in this excellent forum for my side (linked to my French collection )
My contribution for the French patents with a lot of famous French slot machine description updated on my website : http://lastcenturygames.free.fr/Documen ... revet.html
I'll updated it when I'll found others in the French administration INPI website. The main problem is that the patents are not avaliable from 1857 to 1901 and we don't have the description for the end of 19th century.
I updated on my website some new pictures of French slot with their mechanisms. I try to create a new page on my website with documents linked to this French production (postcard, invoice, advertising, etc), if you have tell me in goal to share worldwide, thanks
Take care
Philippe
My contribution for the French patents with a lot of famous French slot machine description updated on my website : http://lastcenturygames.free.fr/Documen ... revet.html
I'll updated it when I'll found others in the French administration INPI website. The main problem is that the patents are not avaliable from 1857 to 1901 and we don't have the description for the end of 19th century.
I updated on my website some new pictures of French slot with their mechanisms. I try to create a new page on my website with documents linked to this French production (postcard, invoice, advertising, etc), if you have tell me in goal to share worldwide, thanks
Take care
Philippe
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