FORUM

A few times I have come across people talking about Golding Automatics who were based in Colchester Essex, but know very little about them. Often people have referred to the machines they either supplied/made around the various cabinet electrical wall machines, but have not seen any evidence of them actually making these machines. A number of years ago I came across a local bandit which was supplied by them and in fact bought one today with their logos on.

From what I have researched, they started business in 1960 in this name by a Anthony Golding. They traded and supplied machines in East Anglia for the behalf of a number of other manufacturers including Rockola and Ruffler and Walker and moved in 1962 to a large premises in Marks Tey in Colchester. They attended that large ATA exhibitions in Earls Court during the 1960s and finally closed their doors in 1998.

Oddly the business moved away from amusements and into specialist audio equipment and still operate today under a different name and strangely opposite the firework company I work for, so am tempted to approach them for any background around the business and machines they made or produced, unless of course anyone else knows something about them.

On this topic, one thing I am interested in is the amusement industry history and the people involved. Stuart has done a great job capturing the history of at least 3 companies on his site, but what is missing from this site is something similar, so an index of companies people can add information to, I have seen in the past people who have worked for old companies and little info gathered from them, which may change if they saw historical pictures and info about the company they worked for, just a thought.

Hi Treefrog,

Yes, I spotted the Golding suppliers badge on that Hi Top and saved an image of it.

I'm glad you've tracked down a bit more information about the company. Apart from supplying Mills bandits, I'm sure they made the Rouletto/Bandito/Jugola electro-mechanical wall machines, because I bought one complete with Golding Parts List & Service Manual.

I am planning to add an index of British Amusement Companies to the Museum.

I did try to contact the descendants of the people who ran Golding Automatics with the intention of adding a Golding page to my website. Unfortunately they were not very interested in looking back to the "good old days". One thing they did say was as far as they know Golding never made any machines themselves, which I thought was a little strange.
I think they were mainly agents/distributors ?? the Golding machines must have been made for them by a third party. As Treefrog says, they moved into audio equipment in the 1970s.