Airship wall machines

[wembleylion]

Actually, although J&M probably made the ball-play Airship Profit Sharer, I've not seen any evidence that they made Mark's coin-play game. I think it might be British-made.

There are so many similar, if not identical parts, on the my Clown and the Mark’s Nulli Secundus that made me think they are from the same origin.
As Lloyd Grossman used to say “Let us examine the evidence” and see if we can come to some conclusion. Clown top photo, Nulli below.

Token Tube; although handed, left and right by where to coin slides down to the pay-out shoot the components appear identical.

Clown Token Tube.JPG (17.41 KiB) Viewed 5002 times

Nully Token Tube.JPG (11.1 KiB) Viewed 5002 times

The Catching Mech; the elongated triangle and the top fulcrum point appear identical.

Clown Catching Mech..JPG (23.92 KiB) Viewed 5002 times

The Pin Plate; also handed. If you flip the plate horizontally and refit the pins the plates appear identical except that the top screw hole on the Clown has been located to the side for the Nulli.

Clown Pin Plate.JPG (19.52 KiB) Viewed 5002 times

Nulli Pin Plate.JPG (21.82 KiB) Viewed 5002 times

The Token Viewing Track; again handed but identical even down to the hole in the Nulli that is missing the sprag that holds the tokens in view on the Clown. (Not very clear on the Clown, Sorry)

Clown Front.JPG (15.36 KiB) Viewed 5002 times

Also in the above photos. The Instruction Panal; the font is identical and the words ‘Made in Saxony’ have been scrubbed from the bottom right corner on both machines. I have included a photo, from another post, of the Beamish Nulli showing the original wording.

Beamish Nulli.JPG (9.53 KiB) Viewed 5002 times

To my mind the evidence above shows that these machines are from the same origin but whether they were actually made in Saxony or England remains unclear and where does The Phoenix Works come into this conundrum. Did Phoenix inport the machines, scrub out the ‘Made in Saxony’ and sell then as their own machines or did they manufacture and sell them under licence from Jentzsch & Meerz.

My thoughts are that Phoenix imported, scrubbed, and sold the J&M manufactured machines because if Phoenix had made all the parts and printed the labels and instruction sheets why would they go to all the trouble printing the ‘Made in Saxony’ and then scrubbing it out when changing the type face to read 'Made in England' would have been so much better.

John

PS, I can't seem to get all the photos to enlarge for a clearer picture.

[pennymachines]

Yes, I think the evidence is contradictory and not conclusive either way.
My main reason for suspecting it isn't J&M is the lack of any reference to it in the extensive German material.
I've seen British-made clowns which are almost exact clones of J&M's product, so I'm confident Clowns and Running Hares (together with the Nulli Secundus) were, as the Birmingham-based Phoenix Works claimed, 'made in Britain'.
Nulli Secundus airship catcher advert

And of course, the Nulli Secundus was a pre WW1 British military airship. It seems odd that a German company would put that airship on their games, even for export. The Nulli Secundus dirigible and the 'ivory' badge appear to be original to the game.

We see it was "licensed under patent No 23431" (Henry John Gerard Pessers' British Pickwick catcher patent).

nullisecundus-plaque.jpg (10.51 KiB) Viewed 4960 times

That leaves the mystery of why a British company would attach instruction cards with "made in Saxony" on them. If they were previously importing and Anglicizing German games, they would already have a load of cards typeset and printed. Cheaper to scribble out the 'made in Saxony' bit. But if this version of the airship was a British design, there wouldn't be any 'made in Saxony' instructions cards...

[pennymachines]

I notice the "Rare Airship Profit Sharer" in Sunday's EH auction has the same British Nulli Secundus, as do other German Profit Sharers, so these were either produced for the British market or revamped on mass by UK importers.

This example also sports an aluminium instruction frame from a Bussoz Roulette.

[gameswat]

This has a classic Bussoz award card frame screwed on it which sort of looks out of place being in alloy.

[wembleylion]

When I brought my Clown back in 1984 I was intrigued by the PMW&G branded on the machine but at that time there was no Pennymachines or other readily available information; in fact very few people even collected machines. By chance, whilst on holiday in Yorkshire in 1985, I spotted a flyer for the late Jon Gresham’s Pocklington Arcade so I went to see him.

Jon told me about Pessers’, Moody, Wraith & Gurr and Jentzsch & Meerz but he also told me about one of his first collecting trips.

Jon was in a building where the machines for sale were run out in tightly packed rows along the floor with the front of one facing the back of another which meant pulling each machine out of the row to look at it. Jon had just started looking when another chap walked in and started walking down the rows selecting machines by just running his fingers along the top edge of their cases. Jon got in conversation with this chap and asked about his unusual method of selection. The chap told him that he was feeling for the PMW&G branding and that he wanted these machines because they were German machines made by Jentzsch & Meerz.

Thinking about the above and Mr PM’s reference to Pessers’ Pickwick patent may I offer some more of my thoughts on the subject?

Presumably Pessers’ would have known J&M because he would have arranged with them the licence to use his Pickwick patent.
Through this licence might Pessers’ have arranged for J&M to supply Anglicised machines or component parts to PMW&G at advantageous prices. If so, it seems probable that the instruction panel was printed by J&M and PMW&G were happy to have the ‘Made in Saxony’ displayed pre-war but rapidly scrubbed it after hostilities started.

I then wondered if there was any historic reason why the interest in Nulli Secundus machines for the British but no German interest for a Zeppelin. Looking in Wikipedia I found that Nulli Secundus was built for the British Army in 1907 and a book, War in the Air by HG Wells, was published in 1908 and describes the obliteration of entire fleets and cities by airship attack. Books by H.G.Wells often caused a storm so could this be where the British interest began.

Although having said that I think that the airships in the machine look more like the Zeppelin LZ 1 craft which was rigid framed internally and had two gondoliers, one at each end, whereas the British craft was externally framed on the underside and only had one gondolier centrally mounted.

Nulli and Zep.JPG (27.32 KiB) Viewed 4924 times

Which poses yet another question similar to Mr PM’s. If these machines were made in Britain why would a British manufacturer use a German Airship design?

John

[wembleylion]

I've just noticed. The Union Flag, on the airship, is in the wrong colours; surely no British manufacturer would get the colours of our national flag wrong.

John

[pennymachines]

I did wonder about that flag. At first I thought it might be a pre-WW1 German flag but, as you say, it appears to be a confused Union Jack. And yes, the airship resembles the German rigid dirigible more closely than the British blimp.

Zeppelin "Hansa"

One thing that seems clear is that the original, very pretty, version of this game was German (usually dated 1905). Alte Münzautomaten attributes it to Löwenautomaten, of Bingen (now trading as Löwen Entertainment), but most sources say "manufacturer unknown". It sported this simple, elegant brass Zeppelin.

[wembleylion]

Hi,
Could anyone help me with photos of a working coin operated airship game, I think there is a spring and parts missing which make the bell work.
Thanks, Mark.

Here is a photo of the token release mech. on the Nulli at Beamish Open Air Museum. My thanks to the staff at the Beamish Resources Centre for their help in allowing me to photograph their machine.

The coin drops directly onto the hammer, it is not a two operation hammer as I suggested in an earlier post. The hammer spring needs to be very strong to get the penny to the top of the track.

Hope this helps in restoring your machine Mark.

John

[mtchaddy1]

Thank you John.
Now I can see the workings I can make the parts.
Thank you again John. I will keep you up to date with the machine.

[arrgee]

Topic moved & merged - Site Admin.

Saw this recently, interesting machine never seen a catcher with built-in vender. It seems to be original as the top and bottom casing looks to be continuous. Anyone seen anything like this?

[treefrog]

One came up for sale at the Wallis sale two years ago. I think Jack Rundell bought it, as it was on his site until recently.

Use search for airship catchers.

Edited, as looking at pictures, it's the same one which sold in Nov 2013 for 868 inc. commission... No idea what Jack was asking.

[bryans fan]

airship.jpg (16.38 KiB) Viewed 3181 times

This picture is one I saved approximately 15 years ago from the Classic Amusements website, when it was offered for sale.

[martynbr]

Hi,
I am watching an auction at the moment and curious about how much these go for at the moment. Just want to make sure I don’t over pay for it.

Thanks

[pennymachines]

Hi Martyn,
There's no easy/right answer. As you can see from this topic, there's a range of different airship catchers of varying quality and desirability. None of them come up for sale very often. I see 8 recorded in the Arena, ranging in price from £840 to £1,900.

[john t peterson]

Excellent research and reply, Mr. PM. The average collector can neither find nor buy this level of information.

J Peterson
Average by all reports, USA

[arrgee]

The average collector can neither find nor buy this level of information

Unless you belong to this amazing Forum John........

[pennymachines]

The Depthcharge airship bomb-dropper added to Museum.

Depthcharge

Also a most unusual Dirigible on French eBay:

Old slot machine.
Extremely rare Arcade games from the beginning of the 20th century.
ITALIAN machine, IL DIRIGIBILE it is complete and works very well.

I wonder if it is Italian. I think more likely French, but operated in Italy.

[martynbr]

Thanks everyone for the information. It does look like a great machine and I have just won the auction on eBay and can’t wait for it to turn up.

Cheers

[pennymachines]

Well done Martyn and thanks for letting us know.
It looks like a particularly nice British example (Pessers Moody Wraith & Gurr). albeit in need of some very judicious TLC. Must admit, I was very tempted to have a bid myself!
For the record, below are the excellent pictures the vendor supplied.

A Rare 'Nulli Secundus' Airship wall machine by the Phoenix Works, Birmingham, England. With an arched brass ball-run and pin-run above the ball catcher in the form of the R-101 Airship, on maroon velvet backboard, applied with gilt metal hot-air balloons and an airship, above instruction card in original oak case, circa 1910 -24½in. high.

I am hoping a collector can restore this Antique Nulli Secundus Trade Simulator & bring back the nostalgia of the early 1900’s. A truly remarkable work of early “Vending” and gaming history. Seems to be complete.

[martynbr]

I have finally got the machine now and it looks amazing. One question is what is the projectile that was used to shoot up the ramp and come through the pins to be caught. Looks like possibly a coin. Any idea on what kind it would be?

Thanks