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Video will not play on my phone? Says ssl connection error.

Just confirms my theory - phones are for making phone calls.

This machine lacking parts of mechanism and cabinet has come up on ebay here item no 123545602887. Interesting in that it is an early Australian four reel poker machine.

Lovely, a three realer was posted a few months ago. As mentioned then most of the mechanism appears Aristocrat, but on closer inspection I am not sure the base of it is Aristo....shame I don’t live in Melbourne

Anyone have an Ace-Hi Deluxe?

Appears to be an Apex machine Tree as identical in many ways to several I've worked on. Though they come with many names and small casting differences.

Hi Bob

I have a Bousche pedestal scale. it was anodized grey and was in very poor condition sitting in an exposed shed in Dubbo NSW. I could not find any information on it but decided to restore it but painting it and refurbishing the mechanism. It's close to being finished but i was sniffing around to find out some more about the brand. There is not a lot on the company and I am still none the wiser on knowing anything about the scale's manufacturing date and where the company was located, along with their history. I would love to know something about them and it.

Andrew Foley

Hi Andrew, sadly Bob died late last year. I'm a collector in Perth and we were great friends for 30 years, but I never spoke with him about the Bousche scales as they were not operated in WA. Though I may be able to help in the near future as Bob left me his huge archive of coin-op documents and parts. Due to Covid restrictions I've not been able to get over to Melbourne to pack them all up to truck back here. cheers, rory .

Might be worth contacting Christopher Steele , he is certainly one of the most knowledgable people in the world when it comes to the history of penny scales,I don't know how good he is on Australian makes but id be surprised if he doesn't know something about the make, email him at americanpennyscales@gmail.com
learn a little bit more about him at https://www.penny-arcade.info/penny-weight-scales

Hi Rory

That is very sad to hear of Bob's passing. I will send you the pictures of the scales once I have finished, which should be next week. It sure would be interesting to see what he had collected after all these years. My wife is a journalist for Dubbo Photo News which is basically a good news printed weekly paper that features human interest stories. Bob's collection may be of interest to her especially with the scales I have and the threads that led back to someone who knew so much when they were alive.
Andrew

Hey Andrew, yes we always look forward to photos of uncommon machines on this site, and especially saved from oblivion. As far as the expanse of Bob's former collection, where to start!? When I first met him in 1990 he tracked us down on his only visit to Perth. Even then his collection numbered approx 230 machines, and many of those being world class rarities. Plus all the other machines he'd once owned but later horse traded to better his collection. I know he has a master list with dates when they came in and then out of the collection. I'd guess the total he owned will likely number maybe 350-375 total? Very impressive for a high end hobbyist and not professional dealer or restorer. When you consider that he was 50 years of age when he first started collecting in 1980, he was certainly a late bloomer!

May I also add that like Gameswat, Bob was a master restorer and a genuine friend to all fellow collectors. He will be missed for a very long time.

J Peterson
Fortunate Friend, USA

Very true. I still sadly get a new machine or something and go to message him and remember.

Gameswat, John t Peterson, can one of you confirm that Bob was also known as "frog"? I recently found out that the web site on Musicola Jukeboxes by frog disappeared from the internet and I assume this web site was owned / operated by Bob?

I would like to verify this as I decided to host a copy of the web site at my domain: https://musicolajukeboxes.jukeboxhistory.info/

Beside my own web site on American Jukeboxes (https://www.jukeboxhistory.info/), I also host a number of other "lost" web sites like: TomsZone (https://tomszone.jukeboxhistory.info/), Seeburg History (https://seeburghistory.jukeboxhistory.info/) and Seeburg Ed's (https://seeburgeds.jukeboxhistory.info/)

If I am wrong and Bob isn't Frog, any help to "Frog" would be appreciated

David van Etten

David, not the same person at all. Frog was only interested in Aussie jukeboxes. Sadly he died from a heart attack 10 years ago. He was working on a book, so a lot of the information he'd tracked down was never posted online. Bob and I were able to give him some of that info along with leads to several jukes he purchased. In fact while he was recovering from a heart attack just days before, I told him of a rare NZ made juke I saw for sale and he then purchased that from the hospital bed!

Good of you to keep the information alive on the net.

This Cricket themed Penny flip machine is photographed here in a 1989 Antique Trader mag when it was going to be part of an exhibition at a giant fair in Sydney, then later to be sold. When I asked Bob Klepner about it he said he'd had the chance to buy it sometime in the mid 1980s, but he'd been put off that it was in a highly altered state. But that's what's cool about it I said. He agreed, and added that as he was driving away had changed his mind, but on going back to get it the seller had also changed his mind! Bob told me that back in the 1980s he was buying on average a new machine every couple weeks, so he passed on a lot of things mostly due to price. He mentioned cast iron basket cases, that he'd sometimes never seen the likes of again, that he left because the seller wanted the ridiculous price of say $40 - and he thought that was double the going rate at the time...........

For anyone wondering what its 'unaltered state' might have been:

Thanks PM, I knew they'd copied it from someone but no idea who. There's enough differences that it wasn't just a Bolland that got revamped. They changed the coin entry for some reason so it doesn't enter the playfield top rhd.

Imitation is not always the sincerest form of flattery.

J Peterson
Imitating reality in America

pennymachines wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:41 pm For anyone wondering what its 'unaltered state' might have been:

I have one of those, never knew it was Australian.