OK, what slot is this.......

[aristomatic]

Quick quiz, as I only just seen an image of this slot whilst researching something else..................... and had never seen an image of it anywhere before.
I'm using/quoting the other research, may be correct....!
Here's the first clue, so it should narrow things down somewhat!
Only around a dozen ever manufactured.

[gameswat]

Tiki Aku Aku

[aristomatic]

is the correct answer...............

I did say it was a quick quiz......!

[pennymachines]

Are you psychic Gameswat? So we're talking about this weird thing? I had to look it up...

[coppinpr]

This is much as it looked when on site in the Stardust Polynesian lounge. I think it should have had a stand in the form of the rest of the head/body(?) The handle is very odd - you pulled the ear of the head!! Special reel strips that I like a lot (I'm sure I've seen those strips on another machine?)

[gameswat]

Oh I happen to own the machine and it certainly never started life with all that crappy artwork on it! Very confusing whoever did that as they added in eyes beside the nose and above the nose, along with a lot of other goofy designs? Mine was found in a Nevada dump and had been revamped to look like a normal slot cabinet painted over in solid colors. I fell in love with it as highly unusual and was certain it was originally designed to look just like an Easter Island Moai with just stone effect. On stripping mine back there was in fact never any paint to the alloy castings, just left in the rough cast finish with grey painted wood sides, which in fact totally matches a stone effect! I've never been able to find a photo of these on location. I'm certain that's because the Aku Aku restaurant was attached to the Stardust Casino and would not let people take photos back in the '60s and '70s for security reasons. There are almost no images known of the interior and I've contacted quite a few Vegas historians about it. The Aku Aku is considered the finest Polynesian themed restaurant there ever was and started a fad across the US for Tiki culture, but so little info survives. If you'll notice there are shoulders on the cabinets and I'm sure these all had matching stands to complete the monolithic Moai effect. Imagine walking past a row of these in the restaurant?! I've still never gotten around to restoring mine as have always hoped a photo would turn up showing just how the stands looked. But will have to bite the bullet sooner or later and just make something. Also showing a mug as sold with cocktails from the restaurant and they had multiple giant size carvings around the exterior so they really played up that iconography, which makes the fantasy painted versions with goofy art all the more wrong.

[gameswat]

Notice the mouth cast below the nose just above the payout cup. Mine has had a new wood base made and larger payout cup as the original Jennings cup used was very low edged, and since mine is 50 Cent play I bet coins spilt everywhere on a large payout. Luckily for me this will run ok on Pennies so no need to spend a fortune buying hundreds of US 50c pieces. Sadly the lucky souvenir tokens that turn up are a little bigger than a Penny. The restaurant opened in 1960 so these machines would date either 1959 or 60. I imagine when they were removed after 12 or so years service they were purchased by some other Polynesian restaurant and they were the ones who revamped with the added graphics, including two Moai on the forehead. Mine obviously went somewhere else and was converted to look as normal as they could make it.

[treefrog]

As per the thread and slottie article stating the ugliest machine ever, I guess they are not far wrong as it ain't pretty, but I always like the unusual and would not turn one down in my collection... certainly different. Maybe a stone effect paint job would look the part.

What has happened to that Retreeva, looks like it has been used as an easel in a kids art class

[gameswat]

I'm a fan of Tiki culture so as far as I'm concerned this design kicks the arse of nearly any other 3 reel slot machine! And like all as found machines, I'd say wait until it's fully restored before making a judgement. I've only kept one other 3 reeler.

As for my Retreeva, long gone. Achieving crackle paint effect à la Bryans

[treefrog]

I was thinking that it was a suprise that the big collector Barry Goldfarb whose recent collection was sold would have had one as a collector of the unusual. Although I did not recall seeing one this was confirmed having checked the catalogue. Interesting though Barry use to host an event at one of his Vineyards for slot machine collectors to meet and buy/sell and below is a picture from such event in 2014 with a similar such machine being played which was for sale.

[gameswat]

Tree, I think I've accounted for 5 surviving machines, two of which only turned up in 2014, so not really surprising that Barry never found one. I discovered mine in Los Angeles back in 2007 hidden in the storage rooms of an old time restorer I bought a lot of projects from. He purchased it many years earlier without a mech and thankfully found the correct 50 cent Jennings to suit. The other machines I know of are 1 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent & 25 cent. Though having never actually compiled all the photos into one place and looking really closely I'm not sure that one of these isn't possibly photographed twice with a different coinage denominator?

[treefrog]

Well this one claimed to be for sale by the L A Slot machine Company....

So what if the other 3 reeler you have in your collection, something made in Aus?

[gameswat]

Not a fan of any of the Aussie 3 reel slots, I don't actually know any Aussies that do love them, strangely just you Poms! I have this very untouched original Mills FOK still to restore, a keeper as this thing is loaded with every single add on they could think of, plus an interesting history. Mills front OK vendor

[coppinpr]

it certainly never started life with all that crappy artwork on it!

Well it looks like it just might have. Out of the blue I got a message on the www.penny-arcade.info site from the guy who bought two of these. His name is Larry Zeidman. For those who don't know the name, he owns arguably the largest slot machine and casino export company in the world (they also have a good sideline setting up casinos for movie/TV sets in nearby Hollywood) - LA Slot Machine Co.

He is a major collector and restorer in the US and a very respected expert on Mills and Jennings machines, especially Casino machines. He knows of four of these machines: his two, GS's machine and another one, a prototype with a different coin bowl, which had cropped up some time earlier in "Loose Change" magazine owned by another collector and also in the same colours. They were built by Slim Ewing at his Ewing Enterprises factory at the request of the Stardust with the permission of Jennings who he had previously built Sun Chief machines for just after the war and before Jennings could turn their factory back to slots.

Slim Ewing was a 20+ year close friend of Larry and after Slim's death some 20 years ago Larry spent time finding the machines as he wanted one of Slim's machines to remember him by. He found two in a lock up belonging to the daughter of a former slot engineer at the Stardust, dusty but still in their original brightly coloured artwork. Larry spent a long time getting the faded artwork copied and redone to bring them back to as they were in the Stardust. Ewing told him he wasn't proud of these machines and had tried to get out of the contract but couldn't. He said that the paint job was the hardest part of the commission. He employed a local artist to come up with the complex artwork and the Stardust rejected the first three attempts. The machines were made from Sun Chiefs and some 25 years after they were made Slim sold the remaining parts to Larry.

So looks like they were brightly coloured after all. It did seem strange that a Vegas casino would have grey machines at the height of there "glitz" period.

[gameswat]

Yeah that guy contacted me a few years ago asking me questions about what I'd found. He later sent me a link to a site that had a bunch of photos showing the before and after as he tore the thing down. And just like mine there was grey overspray inside the interior from the cabinet being sprayed. Yet my machine was never hand painted with any of the mottling, or any of the stencil work (So thankfully doesn't ever have to go back on as was never part of its history). The problem I have with stories told to people many years after the fact is they are notoriously riddled with inaccuracies. I always prefer to work from facts as concrete as possible, like period documentation, Patents, adverts, photos, newspaper articles of the time etc. And especially the machines themselves sitting on my workbench, which I've had 32+ years of professionally restoring.

One of the major reasons I find this story a little implausible is that this wasn't some rinky dink little casino that wanted cheap slots. The Stardust had just cost $10,000,000 in 1958. Then the Aku Aku Restaurant was added in 1960 at a cost of $620,000. This was a theme restaurant to beat them all so they employed famous artists at the time to design and build the interior and exterior theming, people well versed in the lore and iconography of Polynesian and Pacific art. So it seems very strange that they would force someone to (possibly design), build and paint machines with such little regard to the rest of the impeccable design work going on, and to the basic design of the cabinet as a Moai head in the first place!? There are in fact three sets of eyes stencilled onto the cheeks and nose of those machines!!! While completely disregarding the actual eye placement in the inset just below the brow, as they should be on a Moai. Weird that the Stardust would spend a fortune on all the other design and then let this paintwork be done by an obvious amateur with no regard to the well known iconography? And that the Stardust/Aku Aku would accept this as the 3rd go at it!? Maybe if this was an old out of date casino it would be believable, but this was a cutting edge idea with big money thrown at it.

Seems very likely to me that someone in charge of interior design drew up the concept of a row of machines on stands looking just like Moai as they do on Easter Island. This was a theme restaurant physically attached to the Stardust Casino so they weren't trying to steal players or compete with other machine designs of the day, they wanted them to add to the ambience first and foremost! Then they had to find a small enough operation that would specially build a small run of such goofy machines. The fact they had to coerce Slim into making them seems fine as this was back when gangsters still had major play to easily push people around.

These two quotes from the Las Vegas Strip History site help put it into perspective:

The opening of Aku Aku was a black tie event. The exterior character of the building as well as the interior decor of the $620,000 restaurant was indigenous to the vast regions of the Pacific expanse of islands and their cultures.

The creation of this restaurant was the result of 20 years of research by the management and represents a novel departure in the preparation and serving of tropical foods. An equally representative collection of artifacts, foliage, building materials, products and produce from these far away lands gives a genuinely authentic theme to this most unusual dining facility. - Ken Husted, Jan 30, 1960.

[coppinpr]

now how did I guess you would be right and all the others wrong?
I show some evidence from a respected source who is, like you a respected collector,( a guy who is renown for not commenting unless hes sure),with some first hand history to back it up but,as usual you know best yet you have no evidence to back it up. Its not surprising that your machine had no paint as it was found on a dump, ALL the other machines have that paint job ,but once again, yours is the correct one,I know which Im going with.I thought you might be pleased to learn something about the machine but I forgot...you all ready know it all

[aristomatic]

I started all this just with a quick quiz..........

[gameswat]

Well sorry Coppin but I trust my own instincts and not those of others. A major reason I haven't worked on this machine after 12 years is that I've been trying to find a location photo to do the job correctly.

[coppinpr]

I really dont understand you, If I was quoting someones "instincts" against yours your last post makes sense but Im quoting statements from someone with credibility,who had direct contact with the maker,was a personal friend of his for over 20 years, even bought the spare parts out of those machines and yet you are right and hes lying(for that is what you say) . how can you arrive at the correct answer if you dont weigh the evidence ? of which he has plenty and you have....your instincts

lets end it there

[moonriver]

how are the scooter sales going?