How many cherries?

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badpenny
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How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

Every time I think I've got the hang of something another point of view turns up.

I don't know where I got the idea from, but somewhere along the line I formed the opinion that a single cherry pay out on a Mills started with the Hi-top range. I've had Castle Fronts pointed out to me as Fake/Repro/A lash up of different machines etc. because of a single cherry on the award card.

Over on Facecloth I put forward the above theory regarding a War Eagle and was told "Two cherries is usually before WWII and one cherry pay is after WWII." Now that partly supports it, but I can't find end of production runs, so were the likes of Castle Front/War Eagle and their like still produced after WWII and sported single cherry pay out?

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treefrog
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by treefrog »

Hello BP,

You probably saw me debate another discussion on drill plates on same group.

From what little I know machines from forties like Black Cherrys onwards could have single or two cherry awards, so half tops in other words. Never seen this in machines like War Eagles and Roman Heads which are slightly earlier. I have genuine Black Cherrys with both versions.

Just edited, as looking at my Mills books this looks to be the case, so machines like Diamond Fronts, Golden Falls and Black Cherrys, but not Bursting Cherrys, Roman Heads etc. I did notice some late Extraordinarys seem to have a single cherry as well.
Last edited by treefrog on Fri Feb 21, 2020 12:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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badpenny
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

Not straight forward eh?
But with so many (apparently) frauds around, it seems to be an important indicator.

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treefrog
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by treefrog »

Trouble is you can change single cherry to two payout with not a massive challenge. For some reason I acquired about 10 bundles of 3 coin two cherry slide stacks I will never use, but allows one to partially complete this change.

Certainly the most copied machine, the War Eagle is an easy one to call out on this...
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by quadibloc »

To get accurate information on questions like this, I looked at old issues of Billboard magazine, to see what slot machines were advertised at the time to operators.

In the November 1945 issue of Billboard, Mills' first post-war machine, the "Cherry Bell" is shown. Despite its name, the payouts painted on the front appear to be of the double-cherry type. (Perhaps there was a single-cherry payout, listed elsewhere than on the payout card, to call more attention to it.)

However, single-cherry Mills slots were also advertised - Diamond Front conversions. They paid on one cherry or two; but there were still no cherries on the third reel, instead the old cherry-cherry-lemon and cherry-cherry-bell still applied.

As for the Mills Hi-Top line, that came along later. The first Mills Hi-Top slot machine was the Jewel Bell, which arrived in 1947. In 1948, they came out with a Hi-Top version of the Melon Bell and the Bonus Bell, as well as the Black Gold machine.

By 1947, Buckley was also converting Mills machines to single-cherry payout.

Despite the Cherry Bell being advertised as Mills' first post-war machine, the "Bursting Cherry" style of machine was also advertised in 1938 issues of Billboard.
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by chris rideout »

It also depends on what the currency is! The first Mills machines arrived in this country (officially) in 1961 and the machines would have had the usual payouts of jackpot (about 100), bells (18), plums (14), oranges (10), 2 cherries (5), 1 cherry (2). When the fairground operators got them up and running on UK currency, the awards were jackpot (12 or in some rare cases a 5 shilling gold award token), bells (10), plums (8), oranges (6), 2 cherries and a lemon or bell (4), 2 cherries and anything else (2).

Suffice to say, the payout percentage fell miserably to little more than half of what it had been in the USA. Remember the maximum cash payout was 12 pennies (a shilling) and that was deemed to be a suitable award regarding "AWP" (amusement with prizes) machines in those days. The maximum award was 5 shillings in goods only. Fast forward a decade and decimal coinage arrived. So did runaway inflation! Prices had doubled in 10 years and nearly doubled again in the early 1980s.

I can remember back to 1974 when the so-called jackpot of 25 pence bought a pint of lager and you had a penny change that went into the charity box!
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Re: How many cherries?

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chris rideout wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2020 12:04 pm It also depends on what the currency is! The first Mills machines arrived in this country (officially) in 1961
I fail to see what difference the currency makes, so please explain I'd love to know what I'm overlooking.
The second sentence intrigues me as well, where did you read that please? My Uncle Gordon was operating sorry I meant "hacking them around" in the mid 50s. And I know the Fairground side of the family were robbing the General Public with Poinsettias in the late 40s.
So what set up was The Unofficial route?

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Re: How many cherries?

Post by coppinpr »

If you watch the 1935 tour of the Mills factory (in another post) you will see Extraordinarys being packed for shipment to the UK (most likley to Samsons).
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by treefrog »

Yes I was intrigued by Chris’s comments and assume this ties back to gaming laws. I have no idea where machines were used prior to this, but guess a lot of underground clubs and venues were common. A lot of British coinage machines pre dating this period exist with full payouts and jackpots.

I would love to know the history of the darker side of machine operating in Britain and whether anything has been published on the same.
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Re: How many cherries?

Post by badpenny »

It's reputed that Ronnie & Reggie were great supporters of free trade.
They objected so much to breweries etc. dictating whose slot machines were placed in pubs and clubs and then taking a cut that they started operating their own machines.
I was once told how a complete consignment of Aristocrat Clubmasters took a wrong turning on its way out of the gates of Southampton Docks.
For the next handful of years the word across The Smoke was that if you went in a boozer and saw a Clubmaster it wasn't a good idea to be disrespectful. The Firm either owned the gaff or were responsible for its ummm .... protection.
Of course it could just be a load of "hydraulics" as they say.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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