The Wonders List

[gameswat]

So I take it with this one you try and keep filling the central reserve hole with up to four balls to win the various FACE payouts?

[pennymachines]

Music practice - what an offbeat theme!
The mechanics of the game mean the actual notes 'F-A-C-E' are shown in reverse order.
Like many late Wonders, it has really big payouts.

[polaris]

So I take it with this one you try and keep filling the central reserve hole with up to four balls to win the various FACE payouts?

I would think that's possibly the case Gameswat, perhaps along similar lines to Win and Place. It sold at auction today so maybe purchased by someone here. £330 +commission. I would have bought if I was closer but was another £100 delivery, so too expensive.

[13rebel]

It looks like there is a reserve hole at the far left of the gallery in addition to the central one. Could it be that one reserve feeds two notes and the other reserve feeds the other two notes?

[arrgee]

Saw this one recently, mentioned in Mr PM's original list, Bucket and Ball in late case. I presume the ball bounces into the win off the rubber stops.

[pennymachines]

Mostly it doesn't, but that's the idea. The bumpers aren't very bouncy. I've thought about replacing them with super ball rubber to see if that gives the punter half a chance.

[badpenny]

Interesting solution.
Let us know how you get on with that Mr P.
Possibly they make Super Balls differently nowadays, but I believe in the 60s they were highly compressed while the rubber was still pliant. If they split they distorted.

[gameswat]

Pm, I've had the same issue with a number of machines that have balls bouncing around on them somewhere. And quite often with unique rubbers specially formed for the purpose and now made of Unobtanium. I've had great success by carefully wearing away the outer layer of hardened rubber that was exposed to UV and atmosphere, to expose the softer rubber core underneath. Sometimes that meant making jigs to bolt the rubbers onto so I could turn them at speed in a drill or lathe and carefully sandpaper down. Definitely worth trying if you covet originality, prob not your bag though?

[treefrog]

Keep forgetting to add pictures when they come up, but this one on eBay is not linked to the "Wonders list".

Odd that on the graphics the only words have been chopped by the ball track.

[pennymachines]

Thanks for posting that TF - if you hadn't, I would have.
I've been waiting years to see the Jack-In-A-Box - it was advertised as new in 1965 and may be the last Wonders I've not seen. That's not to say there aren't more I haven't heard of. Odd, as you say, they obscured the name with the ball track.

I didn't notice immediately - the 'jackpot' is behind a small window in Jack's box. Looking at the mechanism, this appears to be a pocket of coins behind the flash. A ball in the top cup releases the 12-coin (?) slide, but apparently no illusion of paying from the pot was attempted.

[13rebel]

Wonders Ringla

[polaris]

Well spotted mr PM - had a few head scratching moments looking at extra pieces of tin on mechanism above coin slide before I figured there was a window on reverse.

[polaris]

Got this home after long 800 mile round trip and is lovely addition to collection. Quite an ingenious double slide mechanism whereby two coin win depresses bottom trip, bog standard operation, and releases two coins. Jackpot trip depresses lifting bar which in turn locks slides together with a pin dropping into hole allowing jackpot to be paid. Think I got a new favourite.

[widget2k4]

Works pretty similar to the Kraft Jackpot with the dummy jackpot in view, except they cover it as it pays out to give the illusion it's paying you what's in the window. Would have been nice to have seen that on it.

[polaris]

Odd that the graphics the only words have been chopped by the ball track

Could it be that in bringing the track further up above the lettering it would cut through the window, obstructing the view of jackpot?

[pennymachines]

I'm sure that's right, but it seems they missed a trick not putting it centre-field for maximum impact. The jackpot payout is clever, as you say, but a shutter linked to the slide, which momentarily obscured the pot window, would have been nice. Anyway, an unusual, fun and very rare allwin.

[scottie]

Hi all
I hope everyone in the U.K. (and the U.S.A.) had a great Christmas

Just wondering, I saw this Wondermatics Nine Pins on ebay and noticed it had one row of cups and 4 single cups under that.
I picked up a Nine Pins this year and mine has two rows of cups and no single cups.
Any comments why would Wondermatic do that? Which one's older?
Cheers,
Scottie

[badpenny]

They ran out of single cups and bolted on a gallery to complete an order.

[john t peterson]

Too many beers during the employee appreciation lunch.

J Peterson
In my cups in the USA

[treefrog]

I wonder if it was a mistake, but it does have the blanks in similar places to the single cups. This is the same theme as machines like the Rally Ball. I wonder if there is a different theme on the back of the backflash as seen on other machines.