A Rol-A-Top but not as we know it.

[lol_penny]

In the UK, two Rol-A-Tops sold at auction last month.

Bird of Paradise £420

Coin Front £320

The links are below;

https://www.tennants.co.uk/Catalogue/Lots/382103.aspx

https://www.tennants.co.uk/Catalogue/Lots/382107.aspx

Okay now that you have looked things become clearer or perhaps not. These are not modern re-pros as they are not digital and do not have the club handle.

Freddy Bailey wrote the definitive article about the Watling tooling passing to the bell fruit corporation in the UK. Freddy said that they slightly revised the mechanism and I believe that they then put the re-worked mechanism into a newly designed cabinet.

My question is, did the Bell Fruit corporation put their mechanisms into a UK version of the Rol-A-Top? The results from the UK auction appear to confirm that they are not US manufactured, but what exactly are they? They are both on UK pre-decimal coins so the machines are pre 1971.

You can see that on first glance it would be very confusing to a newbie collector in the U.K.

Best, Lol

[coppinpr]

how can you be sure these are not just re-pro castings?, neither machine has the rotary escalator , there dont seem to be any photos of the second machine mech and the the first machine is carefully photographed to avoid showing the upper front part of the mech, the prices show they were a long way from anything special.
I dont believe everything the self appointed "official British Slot machine Historian" says anyway

[gameswat]

Except for the mech everything looks far too new to me. I image these were done in the last 20 years or less using recycled 6D or 1 cent US mechs.

[lol_penny]

Yes not great photos and no view of the mechanism in the other slot. On both Rol's the bases do not look right. On the mech that you can see it is clearly not a Watling mech. Hard to determine when they were done. I think that perhaps the price they sold for was around what they were worth? If they were Watling Rol's from the USA then they probably would have had high reserves on them. I wonder what the purchasers of the slots thinks? He or they might be a member of the forum.

[aristomatic]

I have very little exposure to either Watling or Bell Fruit, however I would concur that these are repro cabinets and castings with regular Bell Fruit mechs inside that
have been modified with coin runways to facilitate so.

[daveslot]

I always thought these were made by Henry Powell in the 1990s.

[gameswat]

Just came across this from the Nov 1987 Pinball Player magazine in a story about the Arcadia '87 show and auction:

"Tom Styrin from Leeds could sell you a reproduction Jennings or a Rol-A-Top."

And searching this site I came across a little about him: https://www.pennymachines.co.uk/Forum/v ... 1041#p4796

[treefrog]

Interesting read, but going back to the point in terms of old coinage and new, if operators/revampers were doing this in the eighties, why use old coinage unless hoping to sell as novelty items. I have come across so many repro machines in my limited collecting period, mostly on old coinage and lots of them that look like they were done since old money went out of circulation, as such these must be for public consumption.

[gameswat]

Just came across this advert in a 1995 Coin Drop International Magazine for Royal Bell Ltd, which was a company owned by the publishers of the magazine, Bill & Rosanna Harris. I believe they used old Aristocrat mechs amongst others to make these. Could have been made by Royal Bell using a 1 cent US mech and shipped to the UK for easy conversion to 6D?

[treefrog]

Ah yes I remember Royal Bell, I thought they existed certainly when I started collecting and certainly not cheap. I see the war eagle fronted aristocrat which TPG carried on with here in UK

[lol_penny]

Thanks for posting a copy of the Royal Bell advert gameswat. I think that is the answer with the conversion to 6d most likely carried out in the UK. Royal Bell stated that they were reproductions so it is strange that they were then converted to 6d and not decimal coinage. The two that sold in auction for £320 & £420 were probably sold for much less than Royal Bell sold them for.

[gameswat]

The cases might be new reproductions but those mechanisms sure aren't, looks like the mechs had little done other than a mild service, sold as collectibles I'm sure where they'd only get light home use and not meant to be operated professionally. I'm not sure what UK decimal coin was the same size as the US 1 cent & UK/Aust 6D?

[treefrog]

I wonder if TPG or Liberty Games had something to do with them. Looks like Liberty has stopped doing bandits and only focus on no gambling related items.

Googling Royal Bell still exist and only do Mills repros now. Interesting as they state that they seem to own the Mills Bell-O-Magic name, maybe I read there on another thread some time back. I reckon the castle front in Isle of Wight recently was a Royal Bell machine.

I guess the thing is, revampers have been around for years, in the past they sold to the trade, over the last 30 years to collectors or man caves.....

[gameswat]

In the July/Aug 1994 issue of Coin Drop mag there is a Royal Bell advert stating:

Aristocrat & Jubilee rebuilt slot machines $895 to $995 - The machines were originally built for arcade use in the British Isles where they would get substantial use during the summer months" So this could also explain 6D mechs. But not sure why they added the part about substantial play, unless they were alluding to worn mechanisms? Which would be strange as they were famous for usually not telling the whole truth, like using tricky wording in their adverts for reproduction machines stating "completely remanufactured to "as new" condition.

Their pricing back in 1994 on "remanufactured Mills Classics" was damn high, between $1925 to $2195. These were all new except for restored older Mills mechs that had been replated etc.

[aristomatic]

Just a point - is it a given that Royal Bell made/revamped these or could they just have been a distributor for a.n.other supplier as an add on to their own machines?

[gameswat]

As far as I know Royal Bell were the largest maker ever of these repros and fantasy machines. Very much hated by collectors for having done this, especially in the US, having muddied the waters by passing these off to unsuspecting new collectors. And still causing issues to this day!

[fantasia]

I am 99% that the coin front is one of the first from Powells Automatics with a Jubilee mech in. (The later machine had a vac forming at the top to hold the coins not as in the photo black perspex).

The Bird of Paradise looks like an Aristomatics Ltd. machine. They used the Bell Fruit made mechs from electro mechanical 1970s games like action line. (The machines with the newer Bell Fruit mech sold better in the USA as they looked more authentic). Made and sold in the UK, Aristomatic also made for Royal Bell the "look alike" Rol a Top, Treasury and Poinsetta. The Aristocrat Arcadian with the War Eagle front also.

The other two Aristocrat machines in the advert look like 1970s UK club machines (Aristomatic Ltd. operated a large number of Aristocrat machines in and around the clubs in Leeds). At the time these two machines were made they sold better if they played with old money, hence shillings and sixpences.