Supermatic 5 reeler bandit! most unusual bandit ever?

[badpenny]

By the way, I thought 'heavy cast street furniture' was very generous.
I was thinking along the lines of Heavy Victorian industrial machinery....
The gear gaurd from the end of a loom comes to mind!

Sorry, I've tried really hard, but I really don't like them.

Blast and damn it! ... oh well there goes your christmas present...........

[gameswat]

Topic moved & merged - Site Admin.

So, does anybody actually own one of these, or even just seen one in the flesh? Because for many years I've wondered about this mystery machine that was shown in a famous photograph showing Solomon Shefras (The Guv Nor) at a 1935 London trade fair showing off his range of machines, nearly all US imports he was agent for. On the far right is a machine with pure art deco skyscraper styling, and I've always been perplexed by it and have meant to post here many times to ask. Well I finally stumbled onto the design drawings and it's actually a bandit with 5 vertical reels! The 1934 Patent names PHILIP SHEFRAS as the Applicant, and BERNARD WILLIAM BRENNER as the inventor. Patent link here: https://pennymachines.co.uk/Archive/ass ... 439238.pdf

[pennymachines]

Certainly not many have come to light. I believe Dave still has his (see start of thread) and I have mine. I think Tony Valenti had one, but I don't know what became of it. Surely there must be a few more out there.
As I mentioned, two versions (with and without jackpot) were made with a significant redesign of the mechanism, which suggests the company persevered with them for a while, but I suspect they were not exactly flying off the Shefras trade stand.

[gameswat]

Thanks PM, still a lot of older info on the site to find.