Victorian Casino Antiques

[pennymachines]

The Mills Dial is a trade stimulator, not a payout bandit. You're guesses about the little square window were about right. Geddes & Mead explain it in Slot Machines on Parade

When Mills introduced their Q.T. twin jackpot machine in 1934 they achieved two firsts. To begin with, the Q.T. was, and still is, the world's smallest manufactured twin jackpot machine. It is also the only slot machine whose basic mechanism is used in a trade stimulator. The Q.T. (pronounced "que-tee") was an extremely popular model and was made in five different styles over a production that spanned seventeen years. It came in penny, nickel, dime and quarter denominations, and there was a choice of two types of payout symbols, the normal fruit and the Q.T. symbols of geometric shapes such as squares, circles, triangles, etc. One of the wooden-cased versions of the Q.T. was named the SMOKER; it had no flashy jackpot or payout tray - just a little wooden drawer which could be opened when a payout occurred. The SMOKER was shaped very much like the DIAL.

The trade stimulator that incorporated this Q.T. mechanism was called the DIAL and was introduced about the same time.
The DIAL employed the principle of accumulating credits for free play rather than returning coins. Thus if one had a winning combination of 10, the counter on the DIAL would increment by ten. The player could then either play these free plays or ask to be redeemed for them by the operator, in which case the game counter was reset to zero. An interesting feature of the DIAL was that it would not accept coins if there were free plays on the machine.
There was a good reason for this, because the jackpot was obtained by achieving a certain agreed-upon high score on one single coin (the counter was part of the airplane on the front of the machine which simultaneously rotated with it, thus going "around the world").

[operator bell]

I won the Bingolett. I would have had it for $25 except for some pesky internet bidder, but $125 is OK. I plugged it in and apart from a few dead lamps and contacts needing cleaning, it's in full working order.

Now here's the good part. The coin tube was half full with English pennies, about 60. Most were recent, QE2, but more than a dozen were black with age, including some Queen Victoria and Edward 7th in barely worn condition. I did a quick valuation online and the dealer prices add up to something like four times what I paid for the whole machine.

[operator bell]

I wasn't present for the sale of the Bryans clocks, so I can't say what they went for. I know some internet bidders got creamed on a couple of lots and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth when they see what they bought.

The "Manhattan" went to an ebay bidder for $400, It was put together by Vale Amusement Supplies of Rhyl and contains a somewhat modified Wulff Beromat mechanism, which has a number of parts missing. I would say it was worth about $50 for the parts. Damn, I should have checked the coin tube while I was looking at it

I was briefly the high bidder at $125 on the next lot, the Aristocrat Starlite, but again some internet bidder chimed in and took it for twice that. Apart from being one of the ugliest bandits I've ever seen, it was all rusty inside and the clockwork was seized up and wouldn't even turn when you pushed the vane. No doubt it will succumb to WD40 and $250 isn't bad for a bandit, but I think if the winning bidder had actually seen it, he'd have kept his hands in his pockets.

The real action wasn't in games, it was in enameled metal signs. That's what the majority of the crowd was there for. Something like half the signs were knocked down to "bidder 1", the collective number for the telephone bidders.

[badpenny]

Thanks for the update Op Bell.

It's interesting to see how the market reacts in Americaville.
A quick calculation tells me I have about 3 or 4 thousand pennies (no 1933 or 1950's unfortunatley) but perhaps I should ship them across

[john t peterson]

Operator Bell,

What happened to the Mills Roulette? I saw that it was eliminated from bidding between the first and second day. Did they offer an explanation? Cold feet perhaps after seeing the prices from Day One? Some of the big rollers must have been disappointed.

[operator bell]

The Mills Roulette came up just before 10am on Saturday. Just before they called the lot, the hotel lost its internet connection There were no bidders on the phone, and two in the room. It started at $50k and went 75, 100, 125, 150 - sold for $150,000. It was over in less than 30 seconds. My friend was sitting next to the buyer, who is not a collector but a Las Vegas dealer we know slightly.

The White City fetched $1000. It was definitely a three-reeler, not a drum, and from peering closely through the window I'm sure it was a German mech. But the machine was jammed, and it had on a locked metal back without a key, so nobody really knows what is inside. The winner was "slotsnstuff", an ebay internet bidder who probably hadn't seen it.

David Mead of Mead Publishing was there and we got to talking about the White City, which he has in his book as a Watling. I told him it certainly wasn't a Watling and you had said it was a conversion by Tom Bolland, and he said he would like to hear from anyone who can suggest corrections. If it's ok with you I'll put you two in touch by email.

Peter

[operator bell]

Following up, I learn from Ebay the Manhattan (item 190199739157) actually ended at $150, not $400 as I said above. Now I was there, and I know the hammer came down at $400, so I have no idea what's going on.

[john t peterson]

Hi Peter,

I would be happy to converse with David Mead. Please have him contact me. That was a good story about the Mills Roulette. I do not run in those circles but 150K sounds like a pretty decent buy on that one. I can already see a new field of commerce for the up-coming young computer geek: killing the internet connection at the auction of choice on behalf of the discriminating (but ethically-challenged) high-end collector.

Regards,

John Peterson, MN.

[pennymachines]

Congratulations Peter on your purchase of the Wulff Bingolett - remarkably reliable for an electro-mechanical in my experience. My nephew learnt his numbers on one of these. Now he tries to explain imaginary and transcendental numbers to me...

[operator bell]

Thanks, PM! That Selecta looks interesting, but I've got two German wall machines now and no approved (by She Who Must Be Obeyed) wall space available, so I guess I'm Wulff'd out. I suppose I could put them in the bathroom - this is Las Vegas, after all.

[operator bell]

A quick calculation tells me I have about 3 or 4 thousand pennies (no 1933 or 1950's unfortunately) but perhaps I should ship them across

Perhaps you should, Badpenny. There was an auction in New Jersey over the weekend, a friend of mine happened to be watching it. There were two lots of 200 old English pennies. The first went for $56, but the second fetched a staggering $290 - I can only speculate that the bidders had sorted through the lot and noticed something valuable in there.

If I recall correctly, the face value of 200d is 83p. "Gor blimey guv, 'unnered 'n faw.ee five quid fer sixteen 'n eight? Yer a real toff!" (sorry, couldn't help it).