Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Somebody knows... Maybe you?
riche100
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by riche100 »

Wicked :) .. Played it a lot last night. My mum came over with my dad and she loved the machine.

Coins kept getting stuck in coin slots - I think it's because no coins have been through them in a long time. Also to mention, the sliding shelf seems to slide a long way back and lift slighty the small top shelf. Is this common?

If not, how do I rectify?

As for the coin slots, even though simple, I'm having trouble setting them for pennies, so that pennies go in every time down the rails and into the machine. Can take a picture if helps?

rich :)
pennymachines
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by pennymachines »

Some close-ups might help us resolve those problems.
Also, if you post a full picture of the machine with the front on, I'll add it to the Mini Pusher article and credit you with a year's free access to the Arena.

It's now clear from your pictures that this is not a counter-top on a stand, but a single unit floor stander. I'm sure it's the same game that the original poster in this thread was asking about, so it's not a one-off prototype as the New Zealand seller suggested. The similarity to the Jezzard Mini Falls leads me to speculate that Dennis Jezzard designed it when he worked for Cromptons and then produced it as a countertop machine when he set up his own business, later changing the name to Mini Cascade. The classic triple tiered arrangement makes it an enticing game to play. Nice find.

A few days ago I saw another small floor-standing one-station pusher made by Jamiesons but, frustratingly, I can't remember where. Ebay perhaps?
riche100
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by riche100 »

Hello there . Wow that's so nice of you. Here are some pictures of my machine. I bought it from a free ads paper. It was described as simply a Cromptons one player pusher. I was expecting a big new thing. I'm very happy it wasn't and it's this :)

!!>*<!!
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pennymachines
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by pennymachines »

Wow! That's quite a bell!
Thanks for the pictures - you can now log into the Arena.
pennymachines wrote:A few days ago I saw another small floor-standing one-station pusher made by Jamiesons but, frustratingly, I can't remember where. Ebay perhaps?
Maybe I was thinking of this Royal Jubilee pusher sold in the Elephant House 2011. Apparently made at the time of the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, but I don't know by whom...


RoyalJubilee.jpg

riche100
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by riche100 »

Thanks for the Arena pass :) ..

My mate owns that Jubilee pusher ... if not the exact same one, he deffo has one :)

I love my Mini Falls :)
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by pennymachines »

I wonder if your mate knows who made the Royal Jubilee?
riche100
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by riche100 »

You've actually linked to his video off YouTube.

I will ask Mike if he knows. He may be a member here, so if he's reading, I'm sure he will respond himself. He did mention to me he knew it was made for the jubilee year :)

I know he loves the retro styling and colour of it...
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flippa_winna
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by flippa_winna »

Royal Jubilee was manufactured by Alca Electronics Limited of Oldham, Lancashire in 1977.
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badpenny
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by badpenny »

Thanks for that and welcome to Pennymachines.

A quick squint at them on Google indicates they also were involved in pinballs and video games.
Do you know anything else about them?

BP
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flippa_winna
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by flippa_winna »

Thanks for the welcome. Have been a follower of the site for a while and there's some real interesting stuff gets posted here.

Alca manufactured pool tables, fruit machines, video games and pushers. Their demise was in 1982.

My main interest is pushers. As well as the Royal Jubilee single player pusher Alca also manufactured a 4 player square pusher called Lucky 10.

Returning to the single player Royal Jubilee pusher of 1977, it was aptly named as it was the Queen's Silver Jubilee in this year. There were three horizontal coin entries to insert pennies in. If your penny (new penny) was lucky enough to trigger the microswitch on the way down the coin run, in the centre, then a higher denomination coin would be released onto the pusher box (this coin would more than likely have been the old 10p coin as the new smaller 10p's hadn't come out by then and the £1 coin didn't come in to circulation until 1983). Those 10p coins were stored in a tube directly behind the coin run, the microswitch triggering a solenoid which in turn dispensed the coin. In the top right corner was a change slot where you inserted an old style 10p coin and received ten pennies in a separate cup, which was situated to the right and lower down than the actual payout cup. The machine was also alarmed.
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by funky »

Alca International also did a Magic Roundabout machine in the '70s, I think....... A really retro weird bubble machine with the bottom a bit like a Dalek? .......The top had a train with all the Magic Roundabout toys and cars and also figures of characters like Dougal and Zebedee and, I think maybe, the Beatles could have been in there... On the very top there were about half a dozen puppets who moved also... These were soft plush puppets like the glove puppets you would see in that era, like Sooty.... Also played music as the train went round...... Really retro looking machine in yellow plastic and a clear domed top..... Probably a rare item and not too many of them about? :!?!: !THUMBS!
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by funky »

Did a bit of searching for the Magic Roundabout machine from Alca and couldn't believe it when I saw one on ebay USA...... Not sure how to post the link to it, but the item number is 140957205823...... Shame it's not in the UK or I would have gone to see my bank manager....... So guess it may stay in the good old U.S. of A?......Really retro looking machine. !!CHEERS!!
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badpenny
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by badpenny »


ALCA.JPG

Click Here
Q: Thought you may like to know a little more about your machine. It was first introduced by Alca in May 1975, it was called Puppet Party, this was a derivitive of a Sega Game, Although Michael Green ran Alca, it was owned by industry Guru Marty Bromley, who also owned Sega Enterprises Ltd in Japan, sadly Marty is no longer with us, but Michael Green is still active in the industry. I have the largest database on coin operated equipment in the World, more than 143,000 files. I am the Official British Coin Industry Historian with more than 60 years in the industry on a daily basis, I hope I have thrown a little more light on your machine, it is quite rare because of the low production run. Freddy Bailey 26-Apr-13
A: Wow, thank you very much. Can I add that to my listing? Mike Andrews knew the guys and I thought it was older than 1975. So Sega made something like it earlier? Bill Butterfield
funky
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by funky »

Cheers b.p......... that's the one... Hey my description of it wasn't too bad?....Well, apart from maybe the Dalek bit :HaHa: .......The old memory is still OK when it comes to machines you remember from your youth..... Wouldn't think there would have been a lot of them made, as it was just a TV theme back in the day...... but I like the design of it... !THUMBS!
andydotp
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by andydotp »

Please don't mention Daleks chaps...
Me (actor) Dad got bumped off by one of 'em on telly when I was about five.
Don't want to revert to the plastic bed sheets. !OMFG! (Did I just say that?)
Cough, cough, moving on, what a wierd machine! :!?!:
.p
funky
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by funky »

yea its a weird machine andy but i quite like it,......so hope it doesnt get exterminated.................................................EXXXTERMINATE!!!!!,........ !!ESCAPE!!
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by pennymachines »

I saw one of these hotly contested at an auction in my very early collecting days.
The Dalek resemblance is frightening...
pusher-dalek.jpg
pusher-dalek.jpg (10.35 KiB) Viewed 9352 times

flippa_winna wrote:Returning to the single player Royal Jubilee pusher of 1977, it was aptly named as it was the Queen's Silver Jubilee in this year...
I notice that Jamieson Automatics also produced pushers celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee. The version seen here, on their trade stand at Alexandra Palace in January 1977, surely has more than co-incidental similarities to the Alca Electronics Ltd. Royal Jubilee. Notice the three slots and the strikingly similar background image.
SilverJubilee.jpg

1970s saw the onslaught of videogames, but Jamieson Automatics continued to produce wall machines adding simple upright versions of the same games including Bingo, Electrodart etc, and one of their big successes of this period was the Bingo Table which was wanted by both arcades and fairgrounds in the UK and abroad even as far as Australia. Pushers were also high in the market and they produced multiplayers such as Silver Jubilee, Runways, Lucky Push and even an upright version of the Silver Jubilee.
‘Our Ian’ – Ian Jamieson by Joyce Todd

Great to see some pusher enthusiasts here, including the leading expert on the subject. !THUMBS!
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badpenny
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by badpenny »

Rare photo that ....
The Yorkshire Ripper playing a pusher.
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by pennymachines »

Watch it BP - I think that might be our friend Ian you're pointing at. :tut
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slotalot
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Re: Mini Falls, Penny Falls

Post by slotalot »

Yes it is !WORSHIPFULL!
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