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Hello to everybody,

I am Ulrich from Germany and I am collecting old pre-war coin operated machines from all over the world.

I have the possibility to buy a machine of the British Automatic Company, probably from 1910.

Now I have the question to you, what kind of machine is it? What was sold by this machine? Can someone help me to find out more about this machine?

BTW: The seller wants to have around 450 Pounds (500 Euro). Is the Price acceptable?

Regards

Ulrich

Probably train or tram tickets. Pity the enamel signage is gone as would add greatly to the provenance of where it was used. It's still cheap.

As suggested they usually had signage for the particular company.

There are a couple more quite similar BAC platform ticket machines in the Museum, plus this one from the Arena.

And Lot 661, arriving November 13 on Platform One, GW Railwayana Auctions: London & North Western Railway platform ticket machine enamel sign.

Might cost you more than the machine...

Enamels are constantly coming up for sale at the collectors auctions. In fact, the signs are the easy bit - the rare bit was the machine they sat on... Machine has to be worth over a grand.

There are two sets of signs at the G W Railwayana sale on Wednesday below this week with stupid estimates. They will sell for less I reckon.

treefrog wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:36 pm Enamels are constantly coming up for sale at the collectors auctions, in fact the signs are the easy bit, the rare bit was the machine they sat on.....machine has to be worth over a grand

There are two sets of signs at the G W Railwayana sale on Wednesday below this week with stupid estimates, they will sell for less I reckon

Edited as seen PM already posted one, but these have sold for nowhere near the £400 estimates.....I could be wrong, but watch that space

Arent these signs reproduced too?

All,

thanks for the great feedback.
Now I know the sense of this machine.
Very interesting is that there is a plate on the machine, where it is written "Geschäftskarte - Bitte Griff ganz heraus ziehen", which means "Business Card - Please pull out handle completely".
Might it be that this machine also was sold to Germany with another function than selling tram or Train tickets? This would mean, that the missing enamel sign had a German inscription, too.

Because of this fact I think it is impossible to ever find the original plate.

Regards

Ulrich

This machine was obviously recycled much later in its life as that plate uses modern engraving. And anyway, why would someone in Germany import this from Britain new in 1910 to then delete the coin slot to dispense free business cards!? No, much more likely a German collector ended up with this and came up with this idea for use in a train museum or antique store.

Ulrich, I don't believe any German operator would leave the British operators name plate (BAC) on the front of their machine. Unless you can find factory parts in the coin mech that point to a specific German coinage, then it's highly unlikely it was ever operated new in Germany. Your country was known for elaborate cast iron vending machines at the time anyway, so why import?