Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Co. bandits

[aristomatic]

Very subtle that Brigham...

Surprised Double Diamond didn't pair up with Wonders...rather than Bell Fruit?
Another classic line in their advertising was "The Beer The Men Drink"............ Not sure how well that would go down now.... the strapline I mean.... not a pint of DD.........

[pennymachines]

Ah yes, the good ol' days when the ads were sexist and the beer tasted like piss.

So 'SOCCER' is a genuine BFM offering, then? I thought it was home-made.

Was yours the same? The graphics look almost too stylish for Bell-Fruit.

... I think Action Line might well have been a means of using-up a stock of Watling-type mechs., Henry Ford-style.
My 'Double Diamond' works wonderfully!

Freddy Bailey, in the History and times of Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Co, Ltd explains how American entrepreneur, Kenyon Wilkinson founded Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Ltd. in 1963, having acquired the tooling from Watling Manufacturing Co. No mention is made of any old mechanisms, although it seems likely Watling may have had unsold stock at this point. Freddy also describes how the company targeted the breweries.

[brigham]

Very few, if any, actual Watling mechanisms were used in the new Bell Fruit machines, but the newly-built Watling type mechs were so close a version that they are still used as a source of spares for the original machines.
The abundance of these Nottingham-built mechs, I suspect, led to the introduction of the famous 'Action Line' console, a machine already obsolete by the time it appeared.

[bryans fan]

Ah yes, the good ol' days when the ads were sexist and the beer tasted like piss.

Personally, I have never tasted piss (but have been taking it for many years!!!)
I prefer a nice bottle of Whisky at £800,000+ a bottle!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... e-45731647

[pennymachines]

Three Alike & Action Line consoles

[brandojames]

Topic merged - Site Admin.

Probably one of those exceptionally rare examples but unlikely to warrant an exceptionally rare value kinda machine.

So I recently purchased this machine, and cannot find any information besides what's been posted with this picture. How or where can I get info on this?
Thanks

It's a Bell Fruit Tic Tac Toe with the giant jackpot.

[aristomatic]

What info are you looking for/do you need? E.g., is there some issue with machine not working or are you looking for history of machine and manufacturer?

If it's on the operational side, then a brief outline of the issue, e.g. what does it do or not do, plus some pictures would be helpful for members to try to assist you better.

[pennymachines]

Welcome to the site brandojames.
As far as I know, the posts in this topic and the links they contain constitute all that's been published about the Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Company and products.

www.bellfruitgames.co.uk - about us
Freddy Bailey Reflects on the History and times of Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Co, Ltd
Museum: Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Co. Ltd
There are also brief mentions of Bell-Fruit in the Arena articles: Michael Green: Celebrating 50 Years in the Business & Veterans at the Speakeasy
Of related interest is: Balfour Silver Queen Identified

The Silver Queen was made by Balfour (later BAL-AMi) and preceded the Bell-Fruit machines:

BAL-AMi originally made a fruit machine for a short while, it was called Silver Queen. The tooling for that machine was later passed on to Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Ltd who used the tooling for their very first fruit machine called "Three-Alike" in 1960.

Richard Beuschel's encyclopedic Lemon's Cherries & Bell-Fruit Gum contains just three references to the company, with essentially the same information.

I'd be interested to know how the "WORLD'S LARGEST AUTOMATIC JACKPOT" on your machine worked. Some sort of solenoid-activated release I'm guessing.

[brandojames]

Here's some pictures, was hoping to find documentation that would help me understand more of these mechanics.
As for the part that was snapped off, I drilled and tapped and bolted it back on.
This is only the 5th machine I've worked and it's the 1st I've worked on in years. I mostly just do pinball and video arcade.
Thanks for any info.

[pennymachines]

As mentioned above, the mechanisms were derived from the old Watling Rol-A-Tops, so the Watling manuals would cover most of it. They in turn were developed from Chas Fey's original Liberty Bell, so the basics are the same with all these mechanical bandits.

These images are from a working Bell-Fruit bandit. I've tried to photograph the areas you highlighted, but let me know if you need some other angles. Looks like the spring in your first picture just needs moving to the split pin.