Airship wall machines

[arrgee]

ended up around £680, excluding commission - so around £800

So that works out at around 15% commission plus the vat on commission, totaling about 18% - makes the Coventry commission extremely good.

I would have thought that even at £800, the Airship was a reasonably good buy - assuming everything was there and it worked correctly.

[daveslot]

If you bid on line for this, the commission was 26.7%. Usually, the profit sharer bit of the mech is missing on these. Could not get a pic of inside, so didn't bid. The Mutoscope looked like a repro to me.

[treefrog]

I acquired the Airship allwin on ebay the other day. Although a little worried by the bright orange backflash, I noticed in this month's MMM an article by Maurice about his restoration of one and that it had a plastic background. Well this one is covered in that '60s style plastic which I guess someone assumed looked better than worn out velvet. Plan to change back and have already acquired some vintage velvet for the job. Main concern is the mechanics and I wanted to know if anyone who owns one could post or send me a picture of the insides. This machine has a coin slide, but I'm not sure how original this is,. Some of the metal chutes have been changed and I'm not sure there was ever a profit share feature.
The case is really nice, but what was weird was the fact it had a built in shelf attached to the base... Help would be appreciated.

[badpenny]

Photo of gubbins?

[pennymachines]

You see, you're a bad influence BP...

[badpenny]

Speechless

[JC]

Now look what you've done PM You've rendered our beloved BP vocally motionless

......................I love Judith F. Gubbins

[daveslot]

Didn't see this on ebay. Which section was it in?
Here's a pic of my Airship.

[badpenny]

That's a nice clean and simple looking Judith F.
Less complicated than the one in my Clown.

BP

[treefrog]

Thanks Daveslot,
It was under the Circus/Fairground section in Collectables.

Well not feeling so bad as the mechanism looks right, just need to tidy the tray work around the coin slide and payout. The bit that seems to be missing I have marked with the arrows on your picture. Is this the so called future pay feature?

Many thanks.

[daveslot]

It's the so called profit sharer section that's missing on yours. It's like a jackpot that drops after so many wins.

[treefrog]

Good so not critical. As per a post on here or another thread it was suggested these were often missing or removed. The Award card on mine does not refer to the machine as a Profit Sharer, but as below a game of skill airship amusement, so may never have had this or was removed early in its life,

Many thanks for your help,

[wembleylion]

Post moved & merged and split from Which Clown? thread - Site Admin.

The photos of the Nulli Secondus were taken at Beamish Museum; sorry about the poor quality. The close-up of the instruction card shows the words ‘Made in Saxony’ in the same font as on Treefrog’s Clown; the case was branded in the usual way for PMW&G machines. Due to the tyraps I was unable to look inside the case. The machine is in lovely condition.

I have two other machines that have the name plate G. Robinson – Automatic Machine Manufacturers – Coventry Road - phone 367 Nuneaton.
I believe that these two machines have been built using the components recycled from Clown and possibly Nulli Secondus machines.
One is a five cup Bomber that uses the lifting mechanism, the ball runs, the case and the playing surface board from a Clown. Unfortunately due to ‘worm and wet rot I have had to replicate the case and the playing surface board.
The other, an Airship catcher, uses the circular ball runs from an Allwin and the catching mechanism from probably a Nulli Secondus.

John

[daveslot]

Nice machines wemblylion, not seen a bomb dropper like that, but the airship catcher is a genuine machine not a revamp, though it's got a huge coin payout tube, which is an addition I think.

[badpenny]

Welcome on board wemblylion, nice work, you know your stuff.

BP

[wembleylion]

Thank you for your kind comments Dave and BP.

I can see from the Airship thread that my catcher is/was a genuine J&M machine. The huge payout tube was fitted some time after the machine's manufacture because the screw holes are still showing where the automatic payout bits have been removed. The payout slide is designed to pay out one of the very thick penny sized tokens or two normal pennies.

John

[treefrog]

More Airship catchers finished today from one of the final David Kirch collection at Wallis and Wallis. The stand one achieved £806 and the unusal cigarette one at £868.....The cigarette vendor looks part of the case, rather than an add on.

[pennymachines]

And to add to the collection...
Lot 54, Southern Counties auction, May 2006, unsold:

Lot 364, Elephant House last June, £840:

Irish ebay example, unsold?

[arrgee]

Interesting catalogue image Mr PM of the Airship Machine with the words 'Nulli Secundus'

The Nulli Secundus (Latin for 'second to none') was Britain's first military aircraft and was an airship that first flew in 1907 so I guess these airship catchers are a celebration of this and therefore I would assume are no earlier than 1907.

[pennymachines]

More examples: