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Thanks Bob for posting the patent - saves me searching for my copy. I have seen two machines in similar cases to patent, also Nick Costa had one he recased in a cast iron new casting. The empty case was sold in the Costa sale at Christies and went to the USA. I am in contact with the person who bought it and if he still has it will ask him to contact the owner of the mech. It would be nice to see them paired up. Surely if this site is about anything it is to help each other.

Topic moved & merged - Site Admin.

If ever proof were needed that they're still waiting to be found out there .......

Matthewson Two Player Football Machine (Mech only) circa 1898

Having been previously discussed on here (Aug 17), it has now come to the open market on The Penny Arcade website as a service to the hobby. No commission will be charged to either vendor or buyer.

Details are HERE

Metthewson/Matthewson? You know what I mean.

Well done gentlemen

Owww, i don’t know why it become this size

If interested I have available a spare front door for sale for the football mech being auctioned.Can also help with the case dimensions and photos, contact me after the sale if I can help.

Now that could be useful, well done.

Since we're sharing Mathewson parts.......recently stumbled onto this Cricket Match pavilion casting with sign in Aust. Took me awhile to find just one serial number stamped into the outer shell, no others anywhere else stangely? Very rusted but appears to be #2125 ? The pediment casting originally of a coat of arms, then later a pair of players has been removed and replaced with a wooden triangle. I imagine this was deliberately done to customize the machine for some local club or ground in Aust, as there are three small nail holes in the wood showing something diamond shaped was once there. The enamel sign has had the Automatic Sports name rubbed off the bottom edge but is still just readable.

Wow! What a great find. What are your plans?

Best use for the castings I've come up with thus far is to make a pretty damn cool letterbox!

May I suggest constructing a lower box for the top and using as a chicken coop?

J Peterson
Coming home to roost in America

Talking about listing rare parts, did the football mechanism sell as I see it still on the site but the link is broken from the picture? The last I saw it had the single bid of £900.

Due to the January sales the auction has been extended another month with a reduction starting at seven hundred of your English pounds.
Details Here

So much for the £900 bid.

£900 was the seller's start price.

Way back on page 6 of this topic I contributed the following:

The other is a much later patent, 196,650, 1922 “Improvements in Coin Operated Machines”. This is a comparatively simpler mechanism and cabinet than Matthewson’s other coin op machines in a wooden cabinet, for a game called “Police Station” or “Jail”.
That this was manufactured and operated by Matthewson was attested to by Matthewson’s step grandson who was interviewed by a friend of mine in the UK sometime around the year 2000. The step grandson remembered the machine and drew a detailed picture of it, similar to that shown in the patent illustration. Perhaps someone has come across such a machine still existing somewhere?

I included an illustration from this patent that I only had the abstract and an illustration of.




Today I was going through all the "single" photos on my computer, that is those that were not in folders, when I came across a couple of photos of a machine taken from the front and also the back showing the mechanism. This looked very much like the Matthewson machine patented by him in 1923 (or maybe 1922). So much so that I am convinced that this is Matthewson's 1923 machine. It looks like the patent and also the description of it by his grandson to a friend of mine in the UK who was researching Matthewson's coin op machines with me.

The photos of this machine were taken in March 2002 on a Sony Mavica camera and were automatically saved on my computer hard drive by Eudora which is the the e-mail system I was using at the time. Unfortunately it does not link them to the relevant correspondence, so I don't know who sent them to me from Australia or probably overseas.

Perhaps somebody reading owns this machine or knows who does and probably does not realise that it is Matthewson's last coin op machine.
I also do not have a full copy of the patent describing in detail its operation. It would be helpful to see a full copy of the patent is some kind soul would search for a full copy.

But isn't the Mathewson a penny flip game, not a working model? I can't see any sign of the model showing conversion from anything else, or any shared parts? From the Patent wouldn't the Mathewson cabinet have been quite thin, like allwin size dimensions?

bob wrote: ↑Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:01 pm I also do not have a full copy of the patent describing in detail its operation. It would be helpful to see a full copy of the patent is some kind soul would search for a full copy.

It's under Archive/Patents: PAT. No. GB196650 (1923) Mechanical model, Patentee(s): Ernest George Matthewson

I haven't had time to read it, but the first page describes an interesting combination of coin flip game combined with working model, with the possibility of triggering certain actions in the model and returning your coin.

Thanks Mr Pennymachines for the patent. Perhaps when Gameswat has read it in full he'll agree that it could well be the machine. From the photos it looks to me like The Convicts (which is one of the names that Matthewson considered giving it) is about the size and thickness of an Allwin/Wineasy. I don't think it's a conversion, I think it's an original still working as Matthewson intended and created. The fact that I've got the photo would indicate that the machines still exists and is in the possession of a collector.

Just had a quick read and look at the Patent and sorry but the only correlation I can see is a prison theme, nothing else as far as i can tell. The photos of the model don't enlarge but it appears to be a typical model mechanism, nothing more or less. The Mathewson Patent is for a for a coin firing game, they make quite a few mentions of Howitzer cannon, which enters on the side of the cabinet, with buckets to catch fired coins and convert that action into figures that disappear or appear into view of a prison barred window. The figures in the model certainly don't tilt into or out of view as the Patent shows in drawing form or what I read in the description. Bob what exactly are the unique features of the Patent that relate to the working model? The model seems to be some kind of execution, certainly doesn't show any signs of player involvement as the Patent states.

OK, just found the same machine photographed in the Hesketh Automata book. His caption states:

Darren Hesketh wrote:The Convicts c.1910. A very early and rare model shows three consecutive scenes of prison life: one convict is making barbed wire, another one marches on the treadmill, while, in the final scene, the convict is being flogged. The central figure also moves. Maker unknown.