Australian Manufactured Coin Op Machines

[speedwell]

Thanks Bob for all the interesting and informative posts as always. Great pictures too.

[bob]

Not even the suggested week has gone by and yet a further contribution from me, again dealing mostly with Australian made machines. But then it is a long weekend here in Oz, in honour of the Queen’s Birthday, no less, which is still months away.

One of my earliest coin op machine acquisitions was from an elderly operator who had bought the Penny Patience machine company which made large wall “golf” type machines from an Australian patent on this type of machine. In this machine , which had a jackpot mechanism, half the coins played went into this visible jackpot. After some years the machine was declared illegal as a gambling machine. Consequently the manufacturer an operator of coin op machines eliminated the jackpot mechanism and put the machine on a floor standing cabinet. He improved play by replacing the captive washer used to propel the coin with a tapper mechanism. The machine has a hidden adjustment that the player is not aware of, which makes the play more or less difficult, by raising or lowering a “stop” at each end of the machine and the coin’s travel. The elongated holes in the playfield are there, the operator explained to me, to stop the player banging the glass (which is a “fluid” material) with their fist and momentarily trapping the penny which would subsequently travel slowly and gently drop onto the level below, and so on enabling an easy win of the jackpot.

Penny Patience Floorstanding Model.jpg (18.44 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

I have also come across other examples of the Penny Patience/Golf machines that have been made in Australia in rather basic metal cabinets.

The same manufacturer who made the Penny Patience also made a very basic similar machine called the “Penny Skill”. This was a very simple machine which was very easy to win on. The operator said that this was a good feature, as the player would inevitably keep playing until he lost and then the penny became the operators.

He also made a similar very small basic fortune teller which had a spinning pointer, set in motion by the weight of the penny.

Another machine that he manufactured in some quantity was the Skillo, a very well made “Clown Catcher” type of machine.

Skillo.jpg (20.29 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

He also manufactured a companion machine to the upright model Penny Patience machine, the “100 % Skill Test”. This was a machine which returned your penny if you completed the track. However once you learned how this could be done, you could do it every time and so the machine lost the player’s interest, particularly since all that happened was that you got your own coin back.

Another machine that he manufactured was an almost exact copy of the Exhibit Supply Silver Bullets machine except that his was a single not dual gun machine and it used a copy of the unique Jennings Little Duke poker machine coin entry. The second photo shows the Exhibit Supply version of the Silver Bullets.

The person who originally patented the Penny Patience machine also took out a patent for a “column” type machine but I have never come across the actual machine. There is however an Australian column machine the Skillmaster, manufactured by an Australian coin op machine operator who actually put his name on the machine, a rather well made and attractive machine in a rather large cabinet about the same size as a British Challenger.

Skillmaster.jpg (23.76 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

Another machine made here was the “Rock and Roll” where again the player manoeuvred a penny in the hopes of success. I have the Australian design patent with the date of 1947.

Only one example has ever turned up here of the “Mystery Cabinet”. This cute fortune teller has a “C” as a clue to the machine’s maker and a Bolland type card vending mechanism and may well be British.

Mystery Cabinet.jpg (16.74 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

The “What does the Old Witch Say” card vendor is another machine where only one example has turned up here and again it may be a British machine.

Cricket is an example of an American machine aimed at the Australian/ British market by changing various American features for British/Australian ones. The baseball bat has been changed to a cricket bat on the playfield and the lever that projects the balls has also been changed to a cricket bat. The original graphics were long gone when I got the remains of this machine and have been remade by me with the aid of cigarette cards of cricketers.

Cricket.jpg (23.23 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

This trade stimulator gambling machine was made by a Sydney game manufacturer A.O. Buchanan of whom not much is known. Copied from and looking like a machine from the 1800’s it was made by Buchanan in 1937. Some were chrome plated as this one was; others were copper plated with a Florentine Bronze finish. It was a copy of the Little Duke, a trade stimulator that was the third machine made by Mills of Chicago in 1898. A version without the curved edges was made by the American Royal Novelty Company as the Royal Trader and then by Mills Novelty Company as the Mills Trader in 1904. The Australian machine simplified the betting variations into a more basic version by adding the name “The Australia” to the casting where the various gaming options were illustrated and relevant coin entries were on the original machines.Interestingly enough the lovely designs for the cabinets for all these machines were taken from those used by the Chicago Cash Register Company on their cash registers in the early- mid 1890’s, most likely a case of the designer recycling earlier successful designs of his or hers.

The Australia.jpg (43.6 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

Another interesting example of the reuse of much earlier machines is the case with the Charles Shelley “Shelspeshel”. The mechanisms used in these trade stimulators were from French trade stimulators dating from the 1890-1910 single wheel machines. These were illegal in France at the time they were bought cheaply by the Sydney coin op machine operator Charles Shelley after World War II. Shelley took out an Australian Patent No 136877 of 1947 that patented some features not present on the original machines. He then rehoused the machines in a more modern sheet metal housing and operated these machines. Several examples of these machines have survived.

Shelspeshel 2.jpg (35.44 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

Shelspeshel 1.jpg (37.36 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

Sydney manufacturers of Poker machines such as Ainsworth “Aristocrat” machines and Nutt and Muddle, “Jubilee” have been most successful and manufactured many models of pokies/bandits that readers of this forum will be much more familiar with than I am, as these machines have been exported to many countries including the UK, so I will not deal with them here but there have been other manufacturers. The copy of the Mills Hi Top without its troublesome escalator system made by and labelled APEX on its front is perhaps the probably the best known of these and the earliest Australian poker machine.

Apex Bell.jpg (22 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

A machine of interest is a Mills Novelty Co “QT” model poker machine with a distinctive reel symbol of a kangaroo, a couple of examples of which have turned up over the years. This probably occurred with this model having non standard symbols for poker machines, making it easier to introduce an unusual symbol. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of this, perhaps Gameswat has one?

I had intended to put a couple more items in this posting but the system won't let me put any more photos on, there must be a limit to the number of photos or the amount of data. Never mind they will keep till next time.

[john t peterson]

Goodness, Bob. What a delightful treasure trove of information complete with pictures. You're definitely on a roll here.

Accordingly, I now pronounce you a "National Treasure, Australia." You join the august ranks of Treasures which include Mr. PennyMachines, "National Treasure, Great Britain."

Well done, Sir.

J Peterson
Bestower of Honors, American Division

[gameswat]

A machine of interest is a Mills Novelty Co “QT” model poker machine with a distinctive reel symbol of a kangaroo, a couple of examples of which have turned up over the years. This probably occurred with this model having non standard symbols for poker machines, making it easier to introduce an unusual symbol. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of this, perhaps Gameswat has one?

I don't remember seeing a QT with Aussie strips Bob, the one I found locally was original with the US Iron Cross strips. But I do have this copy of a Nutt & Muddle award card that was on a 1950's machine we owned, and it clearly uses the QT Iron Cross symbols. Sadly couldn't copy the reel strips as they were too perfect to try and remove, as much as I wanted them.

[bob]

Clearly my memory is astray here and what I saw was not a Mills QT but a Nutt and Muddle machine with the kangaroo symbols. I don't really remember it as a Mills QT, just a poker machine with the QT iron cross symbols and so assumed that it was a QT that I had seen.
I am sure that Rory is right and it was a Nutt and Muddle Jubilee machine. Thanks Rory for posting the award card which shows it all.

[bob]

I had intended to post the next couple of items last time but the system would not accept any more photos so here they are now.

Another machine, or rather the mechanism of one that I came across was a ticket vendor. As it had no plates on it, I never knew what type of ticket it vended or who had made it, nor have I come across another one in my travels. I assumed it was Australian, but it could be of British manufacture. It eventually went to Gameswat and finished up with DD’s Toys who has made an attractive wooden case for it. Has anyone come across a similar ticket vendor and can supply some information as to its manufacture and use?

Ticket Vendor.jpg (20.27 KiB) Viewed 8912 times

I’ll include in this posting on Australian manufactured coin op machines another ticket vending machine. Certainly not of Australian origin, but one that I feel would be of interest to readers here, it belongs to a fellow Australian collector who found it many years ago. This is a small cast iron machine, similar but not identical to, others I have come across in a reprint of a German coin op machine catalogue of the very early 1900’s. It is complete with a most attractive vitreous enamel sign plate. Its last and perhaps only commercial use, was to sell tickets for a merry go round in Australia. Its original intended use, if one can judge by the decorations on its attractive cast iron front would most likely have been to sell tram tickets, although it was probably sold as a generic type of ticket vendor.

As I’ve previously stated I was interested in coin op machines from an early age. I was particularly interested in gambling machines that paid out money or tokens, although I was mainly interested in the mechanics of these rather than the gambling aspect. Aside from poker machines which were rare, as they were not legal outside of clubs and some country pubs, I was interested in rather complicated gambling type pinball machines that paid out tokens or registered credits that were illegally paid out by the shopkeepers where the machines were located. As the cost of playing these was threepence if they were in shops and sixpence (5 cents) if they were in pubs, I watched people lose their money on these rather than playing them myself. To give an idea of the value of such an amount at that time, sixpence was the price of a cinema ticket for me then, so these were costly games for a youngster to play. However, very early on I won a huge jackpot on one of these located in a hamburger shop and for a while I was sucked in by this and spent rather more money than I should have on such machines. Needless to say I never won another such jackpot.

In a building in the “city” of Melbourne (ie the central business district) opposite my father’s shop, there was, on an upper floor, the workshop of an operator of these types of machines where I whiled away quite a bit of time watching them being repaired and built. Once I borrowed, actually hired for a small weekly amount, a poker machine. This weighed about thirty kilos and I carried it home in a hessian bag on the tram, quite a task for a young lad. I was not sure what my parents would think of this, but in fact they quite approved, thinking that when I could see that you could only lose your money on them, I would cease wasting my pocket money on such devices. It did indeed teach me this lesson and since then I have only spent a most negligible amount on gambling of any sort.

Not much happened to further my interest in coin operated machines for many years although I was particularly fascinated by the Bally coin operated pin ball gambling machines. At first these consisted of one ball horse race type of machines known as “multiples”, as one could attempt to increase the odds of winning by adding more coins before actually commencing the game. Later these were declared totally illegal and were replaced by Bally Bingo pinball machines in which the player had to get three four or five balls in line to get replays which would be cashed out by the shopkeeper. One could also try to improve the chance of winning by adding additional coins before actually playing the game. These were brought out in the fifties, sixties and seventies with ever more complex features and variations. They were all over Melbourne in cafes, milk bars and hamburger joints. I resisted the urge to play them as I knew that one could only lose on them in the long run. However I used to watch with fascination as others played these ever more complex games which existed in a sort of semi legal state in Melbourne. My coin op machine collection eventually included one of these types of machine, a Turf King which was the last and most highly developed example of a “multiple” type machine.

These become illegal after this model came out and the place of this type of machine was taken by the Bally Bingo/in line pinball machines for many years with ever further development of novel features with increasingly compelling player appeal.

Turf King.jpg (27.46 KiB) Viewed 8912 times

Many, many years later, when I started collecting coin op machines I explored this operator’s abandoned premises in the basement of a derelict ice skating rink. There I found a couple of wrecks of machines that I restored, a Town Broker and a Target Skill, some parts and pinball back glasses and some interesting correspondence and other printed materials. But that’s another story, for another time.

Target Skill.jpg (16.98 KiB) Viewed 8912 times

In the 1940s and 1950s this operator made most of his money from the Bally “multiple” gambling pinball machines. These could no longer be imported from the US and consequently, with the aid of the technical skills of a young telephone technician who “moonlighted” for him, he built such machines using telephone equipment such as “uniselectors , which were readily available from “surplus stores” which appeared after World War II and by rebuilding earlier Bally non gambling pinball machines. Some of these used Australian original painted back glasses that had the customary horse racing theme such as “Valley” and “Valley Derby” named after the Melbourne Moonee Valley racecourse.

As well as operating these highly lucrative illegal and semi legal games, this operator also operated conventional coin op machines and made a couple of machines which much later became part of my coin op machine collection. One of these Ask Me Another was a straight out copy of an Exhibit Supply Fortune Teller machine, the other, the Witch Fortune Teller, was, I believe, an original.

The mechanism of these was very basic. The coin dropped through the slot to the coin bucket inside and the weight of the coin tilted the bucket until the coin fell out of it and it and it returned to its original position. Whilst the lever was tilted a mercury switch mounted on the lever powered a telephone type uni selector mechanism that lit up light globed behind the glass on the machines.

Witch Fortune Teller.jpg (16.5 KiB) Viewed 8912 times

A machine of a similar type is the Your Fortune and Lucky Number which I believe was made in the Melbourne Luna Park workshop that made a number of similar machines that lit painted glasses detailing fortunes etc., from behind. This one is unusual in that it activates an electric motor driven pointer.

I assume this lifter type strength tester to be Australian as I have never come across it in the US or UK and no markings are on it to indicate where it was made. The handle is of an interesting design catering for people of various heights.

This is an Australian copy of the very popular British Conveyor machine.

I’ve always thought of this machine as American but Gameswat believes that it’s an Aussie machine copied from an American one using the American sourced belts of 35mm photos. Maker unknown.

There have been other Australian made coin op machines not covered here, such as kiddie rides. These include a lovely series of horse ride machines made over 70 years ago by a company that commissioned a rocking horse maker to make them. The wooden horses were carved Robert Bartlett, a rocking horse manufacturer for the Dow manufacturing Co who had over 200 of these made. Each horse was named after an actual racehorse of the era. These were operated for over 50 years with the horses maintained by Bartlett. Some of these kiddie rides were still in use commercially until a few years ago. Kent Amusements, a rival kiddie ride company, also operated similar machines, also with horses carved by Bartlett.

Unfortunately I did not have a photo of one of these machines but have copied one from a book. This is actually the definitive book on Rocking Horses, a beautifully illustrated book, written by a friend of mine here in Melbourne:”The Rocking Horse, a History of Moving Horses” by Patricia Mullins. The photo is copyright to her and the book and any reproduction should be acknowledged.

In later years there have of course been large operators and manufacturers of poker machines and other coin op machines such as Hankins, who made five pinball machines here in Australia as well as many videogames, and Leisure and Allied who again operated and made, mostly under licence to overseas companies, many videogames from Space Invaders on, but these machines don’t fall under my area of interest.

Let me finish this posting however with some rather charming one off machines, that are an example of the quaint, almost “folk art” ball type machines, made by a showman in his seasonal layoff period.

The next and final postings of mine on this subject will cover what is quite a large area of Australian coin op machines, vending machines.

[gameswat]

The Old Throball machine looks like BMCO or Bollands to me. Much like this Beat the Goalie in the museum. Very similar case and coin return on lower rhd.

Pretty sure I've seen an advert somewhere with a Ping Pong machine that might relate to this too?

[bryans fan]

Many thanks Bob for sharing these photos and reminisces with us. I just wish you were nearer!

[bob]

Clearly Gameswat is right when he considers that Old Thro Ball is more professional looking than the other three showman’s games. However I think that all four show their origins as the remains of professionally made games that quite likely originated in the UK. This can be seen from the details in the door construction, the headboard and the hardware, such as coin tracks and handles , payout cup, etc., which have recycled.

Old Thro Ball is probably the closest to its original game with the cup near the top that brings to mind a game I have previously seen somewhere other than Beat the Goalie. However the coin return is nothing like the one on Beat the Goalie which for years I thought was a Matthewson machine because of the side handles that were on all his sports machines. It’s easy to get sucked into misapprehensions by the hardware. At that time British coin op collectors and historians thought that Beat the Goalie was a cobbled together machine. However I included these for their quaintness that had been introduced in Australia to these remnants of other machines.

[gameswat]

However the coin return is nothing like the one on Beat the Goalie

Well even though it's hard to see much detail in the Throball photo it sure looks to me like the blanked off coin return is the same matching rectangular shape as the coin slot, which in turn looks just like those used in the Goalie - missing the outer coin catching hardware of course which does often get broken off or deliberately removed. There are other similarities like the quite unusual small central control knob as used on Goalie, the central locks used on both doors, and rarely seen on a cashbox door as just about always on the end. The small arches on top corners of the door window are also very similar to my own "Over the Moon" Penny flip by BMCO and some other unusual larger cases they made. This machine just seems too good to just be a cobbled together one off in my view.

[bob]

I agree with Rory that Old Thro Ball is not a cobbled together game. It’s still very much like the original game it started life as, probably as he says a BMC game, which I am sure I have seen before, but which I haven’t got a photo of and don’t know its original name.
I just don’t think it was a Beat the Goalie but an existing game which has been decorated by a showman here in Australia. Unfortunately Rory’s phone is out of order at the moment and I can’t contact him, or I’d have made it clear that I don’t really disagree with his view on this machine.

[gameswat]

Bob, I certainly never once said it was a Beat the Goalie machine! I just used that as the easiest reference for how similar the Throwball was to known BMCO machines. I believe this game started life pretty much just the way it is. The list of games BMCO made in the Braithwaite book is extensive and still not all encompassing. And in fact as I found when researching my own Over the Moon machine the unusual models all vary in case style a lot.

To quote Gameswat earlier - "The Old Throball machine looks like BMCO or Bollands to me. Much like this Beat the Goalie in the museum. Very similar case and coin return on lower rhd."

[john t peterson]

Easy, Gameswat. Quoting yourself in the third person is reserved only for the Queen and our President, Mr. Trumpelthinskin.

J Peterson
J Peterson is the royalty expert in America

[bob]

A friend in Sydney kindly sent me the photos of a Nutt and Muddle Silver Jubilee machine which she has in her coin op collection which I'll attach below.

[pennymachines]

Wow - some great machines and it's always nice to see something 'new'. The first Penny Patience you posted is just my cup of tea. These simple skill-game concepts are often the most fun to play, and the jackpot lifts it into a different class. Those rustic home built games also have tremendous charm, especially the green, long-cased penny flip game and Whacko.

Is the cabinet on the Town Broker original or did you have to rebuild it?

The Old Throball machine looks like BMCO or Bollands to me.... Pretty sure I've seen an advert somewhere with a Ping Pong machine that might relate to this too?

Three Ping Pongs - one in the middle has something in common with Throball, not least the net-style win cup.

[bob]

The Penny Patience cabinet was built by me but is an exact copy of a complete machine that I had. It is built of Australian KD hardwood just like the original. All I had was playfield, an original coin entry and the bottom door with the jackpot mechanism which has to be taken off the machine to access the cashbox.

For the Town Broker all I had was the front door with no hardware on the front and most, but not all of the mechanism, on the back. I got some help at the time with the mechanism, from a British collector friend in the UK Graham Brierley, with whom I was corresponding and some years later visited at his home in Chester. Many years later I finally managed to get a copy of some of the unique decorative door hardware with the help of John Peterson, to complete my restoration of this machine. The cabinet is indeed all my own work.

The finding of the machines in the abandoned ice rink is quite a story in itself. The operator who ran the gambling pinball machines that had a workshop opposite my father’s shop that I mentioned earlier, lived in a beautiful art deco block of flats on the Esplanade called Mandalay (still existing) next to the St Moritz ice skating rink. Here he later had a workshop with a rumoured secret room where he hid his illegal poker machines. When it was derelict after closing in 1982 and I had begun collecting I heard of this workshop. I managed to get into the building quite readily and explored the basement a few times finding the wrecks of a couple of machines, some parts and various paperwork of interest.

I paid the place another visit to explore it more thoroughly than before, in the hope of finding the secret room. Needless to say there were no functioning electric lights, and at the time I was using a new rechargeable torch. However unlike normal battery torches which gradually become less bright as the battery is dying, this torch would shine brightly, and then, without warning, it would go out completely when the rechargeable battery in it “died”. Thus I was examining the rabbit warren of windowless rooms in the basement area under the ice skating rink when the battery died and I was left in total, utter, blackness.

I groped my way around in the dark and eventually fell down another level landing on my back. Fortunately I landed on a stack of thousands of empty cardboard drink and “dixie” ice cream cups. I had discovered the secret storeroom where the poker machines, now long gone, had been hidden. This was a room with a trapdoor, now open and some concrete steps leading to the area I had fallen into. In the last years of operation of the skating rink, they had used the area where I had landed to dump their empty drink cups. Fortunately due to my “soft landing” I was quite unhurt and it was with great relief that I carefully stumbled my way to the upper level and out of the building, never to return.

[ddstoys]

What a great story howngoodnwouldnit be to explore more abandoned operators workshops

[bob]

I have quite clear memories of some vending machines from my childhood. One of these is of a little vending machine that my uncle had in his tobacconist’s shop which looked like a miniature petrol pump and sold a measured amount of lighter fuel to fill cigarette lighters. Although I tried to obtain one of these for my collection, I was unsuccessful as most of my collecting was in the days before ebay existed and such machines were very rare in Australia.

Close to the flat on the corner of Dandenong Road where I lived as a child, was a public telephone booth with an experimental coin operated phone that was unique in Melbourne, that visually indicated the state of operation of the phone’s mechanism. We did not have a telephone at home, at first because we could not afford the cost and later as it was impossible to obtain one because of shortages caused by the war. Some years later, after the war we did get a telephone which was on the Windsor exchange. This was still a manual exchange, where you asked for the number to be connected by an operator at the other end. Similarly the telephone at my father’s shop was connected to Central, the manual city exchange.

Also on the corner where the experimental telephone was located was a small grocer’s shop. On the wall outside was an “Ace” chewing gum vending machine which dispensed a packet of chewing gum for a penny. It proudly announced on the front that for every fourth penny one got two packets. Most people however did not realise that it had a counter on the side from which one could work out (by dividing the number on the counter by four) when it would give you two packets for a penny. It was from these two “machines” and the various amusement machines that I played with in Luna Park and in amusement arcades in the “city”, as Melbourne’s central business district was called, that my interest in coin op machines developed.

I am not sure whether this chewing gum vending machine was an Australian machine or a British one especially made for the Australian market. The cover of the machine, front and sides consisted of a durable vitreous enamel sign. I had two of these machines in different colours, neither of them had a makers name anywhere. Interestingly in Melbourne these machines sold “Ace” chewing gum, a competitor of Wrigleys with a similar product to theirs. In Sydney it sold exactly the same product but with a different name and thus different art work on the machines.

Ace Chewing Gum.jpg (26.43 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Another machine from my childhood that I later had in my coin op collection was the “Gorilla” peanut vendor. I remember using such a machine that was on location outside the sea baths at St Kilda beach where I went to swim as a child. The original full version of this machine came on a special wooden stand and had a larger back which contained advertising signs that were attached to a canvas roll that moved the next advertisement on the roll to the window displaying them. Thus it had an advertising window that changed every time a purchase of peanuts was made. I have a copy of the patent that exists for the design of the machine and another one for the advertising roller mechanism.

An old tinsmith still working at the place that did sheet metal work for me remembered the person who operated these machines in Melbourne many, many years before as he used to get work done at this sheet metal workshop. The operator of the peanut vending machines was the father of Brian Naylor, a very well known newsreader from the earliest days of Australian television. In 1984 I proudly restored a Naylor’s Gorilla Brand peanut machine I had obtained in a rather derelict condition to its former gleaming aluminium glory, and sent a photo to Brian Naylor at the TV station, but sadly he did not want to acknowledge his father’s more humble origins. Tragically in 2009 Brian Naylor was one of those who lost their lives in the devastating bushfires in Victoria which wiped out the town of Marysville where he lived, killing 57 people.

In about 1990 a Victorian “picker” found a shed in a South Australian country town containing about twenty or thirty of these machines in a very derelict state. I restored some of these machines for him, which he sold to an American collectable vending machine dealer. He sold these to collectors in the US for five figure amounts, as nothing quite like them had ever appeared in the US. The ones sent to America did not have the advertising roll in the machines however as he did not want this mechanism restored. These machines were in a terrible state due to the peanuts having been salted with the consequent corrosive effects on the brass and aluminium in the machines.

Gorilla Peanut Machine.jpg (21.33 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Another machine that was not made in Australia but was made especially for Australia to sell Salted Peanuts, was the Adlee vending machine dating from 1924. It is of interest to American collectors, as the Adlee company never made a similar looking vending machine for their home market. As I had four of these I was able to swap my surplus ones for some American Columbus and Advance Gumball vending machines.

Adlee Century Peanut Vendor No 28.jpg (20.23 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Columbus Gumball Vendor Model M No 56.jpg (17.49 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Columbus Gumball Vendor Model A No 57.jpg (18.08 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Advance Gumball No 55.jpg (17.59 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Another machine that is British but deserves a mention here, as I have never come across one in the UK, is the Fry’s cast iron chocolate vendor. Two of these have turned up in Tasmania, which is where Cadbury and Fry’s chocolate factory was located in Australia. As well as the machine that I had in my collection, there is another one on public display at Cataract Gorge in Launceston. The machine’s mechanism is similar to other British BAC cast iron chocolate vending machines of the period.

The earliest Australian vending machine in my collection was the cast iron fronted Midget Match Merchant : Born in Australia made by Bewley in 1908 for which I have the patent. As well as mine, a couple of others have turned up over the years.

Midget Match Merchant.jpg (44.31 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Not much later is the Climax Safety Match wooden cased mirrored glass fronted machine. I have a copy of Max Steinberg’s Australian 1912 patent no 7187 for this machine, and have come across his cigarette machine which is almost identical, but slightly wider than the match machine.

Climax Safety Match Vendor.jpg (20.61 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Dating from ten years later and covered by Harry Cranny and Walter Lines’s patent no 7102 of 1922 are a whole range of machines manufactured by Mechanical Products in Sydney but found all over Australia. With a variety of attractive cast iron and aluminium fronts on a sheet metal cabinet, these include a Like a Flash cigarette machine; “Like a Flash” being a brand of batteries marketed by the owner of Levinson’s, the largest Penny Arcade in Sydney. Most of the machines including those vending both wax matches and safety matches as well towels however use the Tyme Sava brand. The wax match machine selling the little round drums of wax vesta matches had a heavy sheet metal screen printed front. Some had hand painted advertisements on their sides and were in aid of various charities such as hospitals and babies homes.

Like a Flash Cigarette Vendor.jpg (15.38 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Tyme Sava Matches 3 No 186.jpg (16.72 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Tyme Sava Matches Red No 86.jpg (14.2 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Tyme Sava Towel Vendor.jpg (12.8 KiB) Viewed 7436 times

Tyme Sava Matches 2 Babies Home No 160.jpg (13.22 KiB) Viewed 7432 times

A few more vending machines will figure in the next and last in this series of postings on Australian manufactured and other coin op machines.

[bryans fan]

What a truly outstanding collection of super machines you found and restored over the years. Inspirational!!!

[treefrog]

Bob do you mean like the one below which came up in a local auction to me and took my fancy? It had an estimate of 30 to 50 and sold for 360 plus comm, obviously people were in the know.......