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Following Brigham's query about surviving robot fortune tellers (in the AMECO Catalogue topic, here's a roundup of what's known.

First we have the non-coin operated examples:

cheeky wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2013 2:30 pmThey used to have one of these in the Wonderland arcade in Southend.

I spoke to the new owner about 5 years ago who binned it!

Of the two coin-operated robots in the catalogue, all that remains of AMECO's Vulcan The Talking Robot (1935) discussed here and described in detail here are the shellac records, some of which have been seen at the Elephant House.




Above we see him, newly installed on Blackpool pier, in a 1935 postcard.

And all that remains of Original Machine Manufacturer's Erik The Robot of 1936, apparently, are some of the token charms he dispensed, which were found by Sweetmeats.


He's seen briefly in an arcade in the 1937 film, Storm in a Teacup, where he announces Rex Harrison's weight as 11 St., 6 Lbs and 4 Oz. Clearly this was comic license; although, like Vulcan, he was a talking robot, such prosaic pronouncements were the preserve of talky scales.



That leaves Brenner's Magic Robot Impressionist (1940s) discussed here,


Adelphi Manufacturing Co Ltd.'s Victor The Robot of 1936, discussed here, patiently awaiting the attentions of Gameswat,


and finally, Brenner's magisterial Robot King of 1934, seen here at John Gresham's Pocklington museum. Sweetmeats kindly provided the photo and for a while owned this giant. Most impressively, he tells me, this machine prints out the fortunes, saving the operator the expense of pre-printed cards.

I have never seen the Eric the robot machine but do have six different tokens from the machine collected over several years. They are each 21mm in diameter. Having a similar front with a different back, each showing a good luck charm. If anyone has a different token I would be pleased to know the detail.

PM, regarding the Robot King, Pat Gresham informed me that he was much disliked by location owners and operators due to the novel instant print method, which was supposed to dazzle users by being freshly inked......Except soiled children's hands soon dyed everything in sight! I can vouch for this as an issue because we used to rent a jukebox every Christmas to the local daily newspaper printing factory. Even though it was only in the canteen overnight for the party I vividly remember it being smudged black every time when picked up the next day! That workplace must've driven the cleaners insane!?

Innovative floor-standing fortune tellers were John Brenner's forte, so it's not surprising he started this new genre. Evidently it fizzled out after a couple of years though. Were they too expensive or not very popular?

Brenner tried harder than most to convince the punters that his machines were doing something more mysterious than delivering cards. As Gameswat suggests, that was perhaps the purpose of King Robot's printing mechanism, more than the cost saving aspect. After all, that mechanism would have made it an expensive machine. Brenner's second and final attempt, the Magic Robot Impressionist, did away with this cost, and the inky finger problem, by dispensing fortunes from a large printed roll.

Hi, I am new to this group/forum but wanted to let you know that I have a different Erik the Robot token to the 6 versions displayed.
The style is different but still aluminium and is around 28mm in diameter so is bigger than the “standard ones”.
Would anyone be interested in seeing photos?
Regards
Simon

You bet we would!
And

Here are the photos of the Erik the Robot token I have.

If it’s of any interest, please let me know

Regards

Simon