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Hi Members
Does anyone have any photos of any products built/designed by Alfred Leonard Walton of Blackpool that they would be happy to post on here please?
He was a prolific inventor of a variety of things, mainly amusement apparatus.

Some examples are;
1925 Push Ball and Tug of War game
1925 Toy Pistol Game
1926 Roll Down Boards
1926 Target Game
1927 Hare and Hounds Race Game
1928 Virtual Tug of War Game
1933 Race Game Apparatus
1936 Rotary Merchandiser
1943 Amusement Vending Apparatus

His products are dated 1928 to 1959.

Many thanks in advance...........

Hello and
He was indeed very inventive.
A quick Forum search of "Walton" brings up:

Two race games - The Bar (1929) & The Twins
A very early jukebox called the Waltonophone

There's a Walton Crystal Gazer which Clive Baker still operates.
I guess you've already searched the Patents/Archive
which contains patents for the Rotary Merchandiser, also a Rotary Crane, the hare & hounds race game and a quiz machine, plus:
The Bar two player race game of 1932: GB387008
The Twins two player race game of 1956: GB817705

There is a Waltonian Merchandiser on ebay just now.

Same manufacturer, but what a difference the model makes, Merchandiser or Twins.....hmmm.

Topic merged - Site Admin.

Can anyone give me any info on the machine below? All I have been sent are two photos at the moment. Apparently it's in storage but fully working (?) What date and what make please? The owner knows little and has given me a maker's name but I suspect it's a supplier's name. Do these have much value or does its size limit its appeal? I'm asking for better photos.

Looks like a 'Waltonian Merchandiser' by Alfred Leonard Walton of Blackpool in the 1930s. I believe they are too wide to go through a standard door, so that may hold their value back.

The 1937 patent is here. Size has certainly limited demand, to date. Several have gone unsold at the EH, a couple sold for £40 and £55 and I've turned them down for less! The smaller, lighter Exhibit Supply version seems to do better. That said, they're classic arcade pieces, very successful in their day and maybe they'll be more appreciated in time.

.…… when house doors widen.

I once bought one for £30 and promptly broke the spinning mirror. It's the only machine in over 30 years of collecting I put on a bonfire.
BP

PM, if the machines you turned down had that killer quarter sawn oak cabinetry as above then you're loco!@*#%& Nothing better than recycling actual coin-op wood like that for some much more desirable machine that you're restoring. I figure if you're going to do all that work then use the best wood grains available to you. Tiger striped oak like that does not grow in Aust, Tasmanian oak has a very plain fine grain, so anything I can use has to have been imported here at some time. I've been buying up crappy condition oak furniture for years just to get the wood. But hard to find pieces quite as thick as allwin cases etc.

I take your point GW - sourcing sufficiently thick oak of this quality becomes increasingly hard as the finite supply of suitable scrap furniture is used up by antique restorers. The last Waltonian which comes to mind was from an amusement arcade I enjoyed as a kid, located at Dudley Zoo, in the Midlands. The cost of transport was more than the value of the machine, so I would have had to disassemble on site (which probably wasn't an option). More to the point, despite its low value, the thought of wrecking it was anathema. I hope (but doubt) someone less mercenary took it on.

gameswat wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 10:35 am ………... striped oak like that does not grow in Aust .......

I was convinced you were going to say "on trees"

Also called figured, fiddleback or quartersawn oak. The terms are not entirely synonymous but the latter, of course, refers to the method of slicing the logs for structural stability and to show the grain to best decorative advantage.
Common terms relating to the figure of wood

Oliver Whales 'recycled' a lot of these in the '60s.