Coin Operated Payout Dice Machines

[coppinpr]

With Jerry announcing that the star prize at Coventry this year will be a Buckley Bones I thought it might interesting to hear what people's thoughts/experiences/information might be with regards to coin operated machines that actually throw, or more often "appear" to throw dice to get a result.
The Buckley bones is one of the best and clever designed machines ever made and is my dream machine to own (but out of my reach I fear).

bones.jpg (19.02 KiB) Viewed 5470 times

My only actual experience of coin operated dice throwers was last year on a cruise to Shanghai. After I left the ship it was being leased to the Chinese Gov official travel agency for four months to do 4 day gambling cruises to Japan and back. The Casino had been changed to machines and live games to suit Chinese tastes including several live Sic-bo tables - a very compulsive "Sic-Bo" coin operated machine. This reminded me of the old arcade multi player machines of the late sixties with eight player stations round the circular machine. In the centre of the machine was a raised glass tube about 24 inches across and 48 inches high with three different coloured free running dice in it each about 5 inches square. Once your money was in, the machine gave the players time to pick from the many options the dice could fall, then it locked out any more coins and the floor of the glass tube bounced up and down causing the dice to fly up the 4 foot high tube. After about 10 sec of this the dice were allowed to settle and a reader at the top of the tube looking down on the dice read the result and paid the winners. A great machine that would have been popular in the seaside arcades of the '70s.
Below is photo of a slightly different version and its playfield.

[clubconsoles]

When was this announced coppinpr?
I never saw any announcement?
Buckley Bones is a great machine. I too, would love to own this one.
Price will probably be the factor ensuring that I don't.
Is this the actual machine in the auction because that handle is so dammed ugly and wrong on an otherwise nice looking machine?
It's quite ironic that the star lot last year was the Reliance dice machine made by the same maker but sold by Bally.

[treefrog]

Never knew the two machines were made by the same company....well there you go... The one at Coventry looks to have the right handle.....

Wonder if any ever made it to the UK as converted machines...

http://www.vintageamusementsauctions.co ... 4593162764

[badpenny]

Link to The Coventry Auction Lots

This is the page you should have bookmarked.
Your question about the handle will be seen on page 2
Page three is being uploaded shortly.

It's important to remember that The Coventry Auction is the one that (as always) will be offering spares and accessories that we all need along with books and coins.

[coppinpr]

the star prize at Coventry this year will be a Buckley Bones

You won't see one of these at Elephant House that day... Come to Coventry and see the best and...perhaps...buy!

[JC]

The handle on the machine in Paul's post must be a joke - please tell me it is a joke! It's been photo-shopped or something. Surely no one would actually have fitted that handle to a Bones?

[badpenny]

...... and the knee bone's connected to the trombone ......

[pennymachines]

I love all the dice machines. I wonder how the modern version Coppin posted works. No doubt it could be using electronic optical character recognition.

[pennymachines]

This one's a bit modern for our tastes (circa 1980), but an interesting bit of engineering. Electronic advances made it possible to read the dice photoelectrically, thereby dispensing with the clever trickery that earlier dicers depended upon.

Bonanza Enterprises Million Dice Double Up craps machine (turn up your volume - very low sound level)



Here's a roundup of previous payout dice machine threads:
J.J. Parker Seven Eleven craps player
Mayfield Electronic Dice & Streets Pot Luck identified
Mills Dice Restoration
Bally Reliance identified
Western Equipment Mysterious Eye
See it Operate: Mysterious Eye, Black Magic, Reliance, Bones, Dice

[pennymachines]

OK, so this is much too modern but thought I'd post it anyway because it's rather clever: die rolling mechanism from a slot machine that is driven by stepper motor to pre-selected position. Related patent by Bell Fruit Manufacturing Co.