How many cherries?

Somebody knows... Maybe you?
chris rideout
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by chris rideout »

Hello Badpenny. I may have missed something here but I assumed the law permitting operation of gaming machines came into force in January 1961. As for the currency query, the UK maximum win was 12 pennies cash or 5 shillings in kind. I was indeed implying that the fairground sharks were cutting down the wins and their machines often had lemons stuck on top of other symbols to cut the payouts down to the bone.

Do you or anyone else know what the gaming scene was like prior to 1961? I was in infants or junior school in those days and the teachers failed to teach us anything about gaming machines!

treefrog wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:33 pm I would love to know the history of the darker side of machine operating in Britain and whether anything has been publish on the same.
One person who had a bed and breakfast guest house on the Isle of Wight told me some stories. In London, he had a junk shop. He also had a friend who was a dustbin man. When the police raided an illegal gambling den, they confiscated the machines and threw them into dustbins round the back. The dustcart picked the machines up and they were dropped off discreetly at the back of the junk shop to be repaired. A week or so later, the machines would be back in the gambling den (probably at a new address) earning money to pay the fines!
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treefrog
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by treefrog »

As stated above it would be great to find info on how and what gaming relating to our hobby took place before 1960. Although the new act at that time clarified the rules and licensing of things like bookmakers, machines in pubs and clubs and casinos, there must have been gaming before that. Most British manufacturers were making machines classified as gaming including Bolands, Bryans Wonders etc, so what were the rules and where were they played?

The first legal casino was in Port Talbot in 1961, the Casino Club.



The gaming acts prior to this were old back to 1902 and Victorian times and no provision for licensing seems to have been available. I can only assume all outlets were illegal. As such, all the manufacturers were supplying machines to the criminal world. !PUZZLED!

Certainly a lot of older British machines had payouts way above the 12 coin limit.....
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badpenny
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

My Uncle Gordon, had two arcades back then in Paignton.
He (and all the other operators) relied on The Rozzers ....

* .... being confused about the vague laws concerning arcade machines, prior and immediately after the new act.
* .... wanting to have a back door they could knock on out of season where they gain access to a warm workshop and a kettle.
* .... being happy that a pier stretching out over the sea and in the air meant the evil machines weren't physically in the country.

The other arcade was in a private clubhouse on site at his caravan club, which meant general public were not allowed to stroll in. And if you believe that you're just the punter he wanted.
It was commonly shared between the operators that it was the shady nature of arcades that drew them in. Once it all went legal and with rules attached business dropped noticeably, nationally.

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chris rideout
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by chris rideout »

If you were able to look at the reel tapes, it would usually give the game away.

On the 1st reel:
2 cherries = pay 3 coins. 3 cherries = pay 2 coins.
About 5 cherries = pays nothing unless the 2nd reel is also a cherry.

On the 2nd reel:
5 or 6 cherries = pays 5 or 4 coins respectively.
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badpenny
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

Sorry Chris, it would give what game away?
Which question are you solving there?

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chris rideout
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by chris rideout »

Maybe I should have said "how many coins" are paid according to the cherries rather than "how many cherries" according to the coins paid out. Many machines had their awards "adjusted" and one way of finding out the original winning combinations would be to examine the reel tapes and suss out the awards accordingly.

Hopefully I have clarified my ambiguous reply. My O level English ain't working proper today!
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badpenny
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

Chris your O level English is fine, my skew whiff common sense is rarely firing on four cylinders.

I agree with your explanation, but it makes the assumption that a machine or its mech is original and not a reproduction. If only that were a given.
My opening post on this thread is attempting (not successfully though) to throw light on such features as pay out combinations at different periods for the sole purpose of wheedling out the fakes.

I get fearful when I see the likes of a War Eagle or Castle Front with a pay out on single cherry or a Poinsettia with shiny shiny insides.
Attempting to get to the bottom of when the manufacturing runs of certain models ended should help throw light on the likelihood of say, a Castle Front being turned out after World War Twice. Which is when general opinion suggests pay outs moved to include single cherry. Alternatively is such a machine really a Hi-top mech slid into a 30s stylish cabinet and a repro Castle Front casting bolted on the front?

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Re: How many cherries?

Post by quadibloc »

badpenny wrote: Tue Mar 03, 2020 4:15 pmI get fearful when I see the likes of a War Eagle or Castle Front with a pay out on single cherry
As well you might! Of course machines can have their payouts altered, and not only by misguided collectors. When single-cherry payouts became fashionable, or, for that matter, when paying out 18 coins for three bars on any of the three visible lines - like on the Buckley Criss-Cross and then the Jennings Tic-Tac-Toe - became fashionable, a Mills War Eagle silent bell could have had its payouts and reel strips altered while in actual service.

So to determine when certain payout schemes began appearing, the place to look would be the pages of publications like Billboard and Automatic Age magazine.

In fact, that's where I've recently been hunting to see if there's any evidence that any manufacturer (or even any company doing revamps) had single-cherry payout before the United States entered World War II. And also to find out who originated single-cherry payout. I had originally thought (from a superficial impression, rather than actual evidence) it was Jennings and not Mills, but it appears I was wrong about that. But the earliest Mills machines with a payout on a single cherry still did not have cherries on the third reel, so the transition to the modern form of single-cherry payout was complicated, having taken place in two steps, it seems.

I've just now done some additional searching. A payout on a cherry on the first reel seems to have been introduced in 1939, on the Mills Diamond Front. This was a revamp based on a Mills mechanism, so the innovation came from a third-party company, not Mills. And some Jennings machines in 1946 offered a payout on three cherries and two cherries and a bar, so the modern form of the single-cherry payout apparently was introduced by Jennings.
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badpenny
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

Thanks quadibloc ....

That's really interesting.
I'm not overly bothered about original machines having been revamped while in service. To me that's all part of their rich history.
It's only the scrote who cobbles together bits and pieces then sells it off as real I want to avoid.

The info about dates is useful, thanks again. A true indicator would now suggest that production runs may be a key.
It must be documented somewhere if the likes of War Eagle/Castle Front were being manufactured in decent numbers post war.
Until I feel happy about that I can't see me adding one to my collection.

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quadibloc
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by quadibloc »

I see I was mistaken about the cherry on the third reel; it wasn't introduced with the first series of post-war Jennings machines. I will keep looking to see if I can pin it down.
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brigham
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by brigham »

I don't remember cherries on the third reel until the electro-era. They still look wrong to me.
The single-cherry payout is usually ascribed to the Mills Chrome Bell, of January 1939, at least according to the advertising blurb of the day. This is the machine which the 'jobbers' came to call the 'diamond front', but it IS a genuine Mills product, not an 'after-market' conversion. It WAS the machine which set Pat Buckley on his journey from repairer to maker, though.
The difference in the mech. is simply the length of the payout finger. If you shorten it (or otherwise bend the vertical lever) so that the 'notch' comes into play between the first two payout discs, rather than the second and third, it will pay for single cherry/two cherries, rather than two cherries/two cherries and bell or lemon.
ALL the Mills mechanisms I have seen have been punched for bell and lemon in the cherry position on the third disc, even the ones on 'single cherry' pay; so I conclude that the 'old' payout remained an option.
Can anyone look inside a genuine late Hi-Top, to confirm if, or not, the third disc is still so punched?
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by quadibloc »

brigham wrote: Fri Mar 06, 2020 5:39 pmI don't remember cherries on the third reel until the electro-era. They still look wrong to me.The single-cherry payout is usually ascribed to the Mills Chrome Bell, of January 1939, at least according to the advertising blurb of the day.
I have seen, on page 160 of Lemons, Cherries, and Bell-Fruit Gum, what appears to be an advertisement for the original Mills Chrome Bell from 1939, showing single-cherry pay in the photo, but the illustration doesn't ambiguously show that it's something from Mills.
And Automatic Age seems to have mostly dropped slot machine ads by 1939. However, if the Mills Chrome Bell is from January 1939 and not late 1939, then I may have been looking in the wrong place - both in Automatic Age and in Billboard, so maybe there's a chance that I can positively verify this.

I have now sorted things out. There is a nice splashy ad, even with color, by Mills, in Automatic Age magazine, for the Chrome Bell, showing that it has single-cherry pay... in the October 1940 issue!
The Chrome Bell indeed existed in 1939, since there was a news item in the May 27, 1939 issue of Billboard that was about it - however, the scan of the page I found was not clear enough for me to draw any conclusions about its payout.
But that does definitely establish that Mills did originate single-cherry pay, and it existed before the post-war era.
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badpenny
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

Interesting research there gents.
Thank you both.
I wonder if we can find evidence for War Eagles and Castle Fronts as well?

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coppinpr
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by coppinpr »

attached is the official company flyer that went out to customer announcing the new 1 cherry payout in 1939

one cherry.jpg

and just in case someone asks "how many melons" below is the not so politically correct flyer that introduced the new "melon" symbol two years earlier in 1937, at that time only used as a new Jackpot line
melon.jpg

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badpenny
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

That looks hopeful Paul, I'll read it when I get back from the boat, thanks.

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brigham
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by brigham »

So the Melon as a symbol pre-dates the Hi-Top Melon Belly.
I didn't know that. My fault for making assumptions.
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coppinpr
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by coppinpr »

The melon was introduced in 1937 for this rather odd machine the "Melon Bell" which to all intents and purposes is a "Bursting cherry"...with out the cherry!
The company had high hopes for this machine but it seems to have actually been a flop for it came out later in the same year as the bursting cherry but retained the melon jackpot payout but with a smaller payout . The problem with the original seems to have been the jackpot,the double window jackpot contained a massive $10 in coins BUT it was was hand filled AND attendant paid, on winning the jackpot the player had to ask the attendant to unlock the jackpot which then gushed out into the payout tray,the company thought this would be a big selling point..it was not. The jackpot had then to be hand loaded with $10 of coins and an internal meter recorded the payout.
One interesting fact is the colour,the one in the photo is the original colour, Mills paid for research done by a "famous psychologist" (?) into men's favorite colour,they were told violet (??) so they made it in violet...Im guessing they got it wrong again :lol: The case design was made to look like a bursting melon!! unfortunally this was not obvious to customers so on the flyer they added an arrow pointing to the window saying "This is a melon" :HaHa:
The bursting cherry was revamped in 1939 as the "Brown front" but the melons were dropped for this model

melon bell 2.jpg
melon bell 2.jpg (28.95 KiB) Viewed 3402 times


its a melon.jpg

Last edited by coppinpr on Sat Mar 07, 2020 1:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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coppinpr
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by coppinpr »

Examining the list of reel strips used by mills in the 30's it appears the "castle front" and the "War eagle" never had 1 cherry payouts, the only machines that did were
Chrome Bell
Golden Falls (late models only)
Black Cherry (almost all of these had single cherry payouts but min double cherry was available( this is the machine that Pat Buckley based his designs on))
quadibloc
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by quadibloc »

I knew about the pre-war Melon Bell, although I never saw that incorrect flyer! That at least settles that it is the watermelon it looks like, rather than a true melon like a Honeydew. Or are watermelons really melons? Looks like a trip to Wikipedia is in order to sort out this botanical mystery!

Both watermelons and canteloupes are true melons, belonging to the same genus Cucurbitae as pumpkins, squash, and gourds as well.
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badpenny
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

Thanks everyone for your input, especially Paul.

I think we now have enough evidence to ascertain that single cherry pay out on Mills machines didn't appear pre WWII.
Also it rules out War Eagles and Castle Fronts.
Such a machine sporting single cherry awards seems to point to: -
Faulty machines altered during their operating life in order to get them back out and earning, without attention being paid to authenticity. Someone suggested to me a while back that operators post war may have uprated their pre war machines to single cherry pay out. I can't imagine a profit driven operator spending time and money altering a machine so it would pay out additional combinations.

Sadly a more obvious reason for there being so many pre war Mills slots displaying single cherry awards indicates skulduggery and rip offs. Especially once collectors appeared on the scene.

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PS Well I'm off now to collect my brand new Triumph Herald 3.5 ltr articulated Combine Harvester that I was so lucky to find.
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