OK, let's talk RARE one arm bandits....

[badpenny]

This is probably rarest in my collection.

I know this is nearly 2 years old, but I'm a bit slow these days ..... why would a machine that is a vendor front (twin columns to boot) also have a side vendor? How many tubes of mints does the operator want you to have?

BP

[gameswat]

BP, those are dummy packs in the front, there's no way to vend them.

[watlingman]

Three of mine. Let you decide if you think they qualify for rare, I will just say find me another!

[gameswat]

So I'd be inclined to just put the strawberries down to it being a European machine rather than surmising a connection with Caille.

Quad, except it's a 5 cent machine so made for US operation. Don't remember any Euro slots marketed in the US and did the Europeans even have any need for mint vendors? The name is cast into it, by Silver King Novelty who were quite large selling private labelled Mills and revamping Mills and who knows what else.

[clubconsoles]

Three of mine. Let you decide if you think they qualify for rare, I will just say find me another!

I would say I've never seen a FOK front casting like that, so let's say it is a rare revamp of a common machine, as is my Silver King which is a revamp of a common Jennings "Mints of Quality" gooseneck from the mid '20s!

[brigham]

Is a Watling Treasury rare, or it there something unusual about that particular one?

[clubconsoles]

Not really, less were made than the Rol a Tops but Treasury still had a Seven year production run.
The problem with Treasury is the castings have been reproduced and bolted onto blue seals which are much more plentiful.
So the Treasury population has doubled and half of them are repro, which has hurt the value of the real deal!

Thankfully, most of the repros are sand cast and some of the fine details in the coins are lost, so if you compare it to a real one, it's easy to see.
If you don't have one to compare to, it can be hard to discern.
Most made from Blue Seals tend to be without jackpots, have no second coin return chute and a blue seal handle instead of a wider Rol a Top handle.
I know Watlingman's machine and I can safely say it is the real deal.

[watlingman]

It's also a mint vendor Treasury that makes it a little harder to find, but not impossible I agree!

[coppinpr]

I think the early basic Treasury had the front shown below. I guess the vendor front on the one above was standard for vendors and was the same lower casting used on some Rol-a-Tops, although the first Rol-a-Tors had the mints visible on the vendor, at least Thomas White Burns Watling stakes his reputation on it!!

[brigham]

Surely the mint vendor is blanked-off? You wouldn't use it as a vendor like that, it defeats the object.

[coppinpr]

I think you will find most vendors are open fronted on all makes of early machines. That was in fact the object - you were pretending to be vending a product, not running a gambling machine.

[treefrog]

Funny old topic this one, as there are probably hundreds of machines that could be called rare, but I have always had an appeal to quirky and rare and especially associated with machines used in the U.K. (erm and Australia )

I was digging through some old pictures I captured of sold machines I used to track in the days when selling on eBay was possible, and the below machine really appealed to me, on old penny, based on a good, old machine with a nice British twist with a football theme. An early Jennings Dutch boy on penny with football reel strips. Never seen another and it looked that part... I should have bought it. I wonder if it ended up getting stripped, polished and having replacement strips.

[coppinpr]

I made replacement reel strips for this (or one like it) for a collector a couple of years ago. (I thought I still had them on file but might have lost them in a computer crash last year so can't post, a pity). As Tom says, really unusual set up, the original strips had the Samson (London) maker's name on them.

[treefrog]

Well if it was the same machine, the strips looked great and nicely aged, case in point if the same.

[coppinpr]

No, these were gone. I had trouble identifying some of the artwork in fact.

[daveslot]

I own that machine. Unfortunately someone had started to strip it. I left it for years as I liked it as it was. Then had room for it in the arcade so did strip the rest of the paint off. Then had a new reward card made. Obviously I left the original strips on as they are amazing tinplate strips dated 1924. Never seen any others.

[watlingman]

Beautiful machine, it would definitely make my top shelf display.

[daveslot]

Anybody seen one of these before. Jennings Victoria with 1d/50c escalator.

[treefrog]

Peacock and jackpot Victoria... Peacock is in Australian museum with poker strips.

[daveslot]

The two you have pictured are not particularly rare. It was the Victoria C (I think it's a C) with escalator I thought was rare. The escalator is quite different to the normal chain driven affair.