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Now I'd happily trade 5 of those damn ugly Bryans All Square lighthouse cranes for just one of these!! Never seen this corner model before - has anybody else?? http://www.ebay.com/itm/1930s-Curved-Di ... _720wt_917

Gameswat wrote:Now I'd happily trade 5 of those damn ugly Bryans All Square lighthouse cranes for just one of these!!

You would need to for the money they are asking.... Certainly novel as a corner unit, although I am less keen on the 20/30's frieze wood work at the top, very reminiscent on the less fashionable furniture these days, probably why the industrial George Orwellian style of the Bryans crane appeals to me......

Just imagine four of these things together..........

Gameswat wrote:Just imagine four of these things together..........

Yes a nice circular 4 play machine.....

Of course a corner machine makes a whole amount of sense as corners are always best for machines and this would present very well to the customer, also must be a big plus for a collector in their homes. Not sure I can think of other corner machines, I know there were free standing 3 sided units, but assume there must have been others...

Would I have to wear my try-corner colonial hat when playing this claw? And if I did, would I then have to join the Tea Party?

J Peterson
American patriot partial to coffee

Gameswat wrote:Never seen this corner model before - has anybody else??

I haven't. I like it a lot. Nice chequerboard veneers on the front.

treefrog wrote:...I am less keen on the 20/30s frieze wood work at the top, very reminiscent on the less fashionable furniture these days, probably why the industrial George Orwellian style of the Bryans crane appeals to me......

You can have both apparently...

The carved wood shoulders are a Bonzini & Sopransi hallmark.

Gameswat wrote:Just imagine four of these things together..........

You don't have to, thanks to the angle of the mirrors...

pennymachines wrote:You don't have to, thanks to the angle of the mirrors...

Yes indeed! That's what made me think of it. Hopefully Penguin can enlighten us. Damn those corner hatted Yanks with their never ending supply of Euro/Pom treasure!@#$%^&. Evil eyed look at JbloodyP.

Ah GamesBoy, you pay me honor I do not deserve. I'm just a humble small-peanut collector with a rag-tag stable of broken down nags. Now if I had YOUR mechanical talent, I would have something to sing about, like a working AUTO TALKIE and some other goodies. But alas, I don't. So I'm relegated to waiting and watching for Australian rescue.

J Peterson
American Ragman

PM - if this is Bonzini and Sopransi then why does the front casting have what appears to be intertwined cast letters of BG? And that front casting doesn't match like most of the others either. Plus the boom and mast castings don't match either of my BS cranes? Maybe it was once Bonzini and Gaston?? Or possibly the cases all made by the same cabinet company?

I took it to be a squashed B&S logo, but I see what you mean. It does look more like a B imposed over a G (or vice versa). Certainly, stylistic similarities and similar logo don't prove a common origin.
I've put it beside two bona fide Bonzini & Sopransi logos for comparison.

I think "La Vraie de Vraie" means something like "the genuine article" or "the real deal".

I've not heard of Bonzini and Gaston.
Nor did I know Bonzini & Sopransi copied the Exhibit Supply Rotary Merchandiser. It's so similar, I wonder if it was made under licence.

Hehe, I just made up the name Gaston as an example of what it could have been. I have had the rotary model and the simpler model B&S machines and the simpler model has basically a copy of the Merchantman mech. I think Bob Klepner told me he thought they did this under licence?

The corner crane is possibly not made by Bonzini et Sopransi. The letters on the front are B&G, castings and mechanics are also different from the B&S cranes.

There are at the moment, 2 corner cranes know by me, the one in the USA (which I bought in Belgium, but when I went to collect it, it was gone and sold to another person, who sold it to the USA) but I could buy two other cranes, which are on the picture with 2 Bryans cranes (I took that picture), one is marked with RG and the other with LAF.

A year later, I received a mail, again from Belgium, where I was offered the second corner crane (which I picked up that same day!!)

The second corner crane is still in my collection. Stamped in the wood is a Roman number 16. I guess that they made at least 16 of these??

It's near impossible to find documentation of the makers of the French cranes. If anyone has, please share it with me.

Regards from the Netherlands.

Hi everyone,
I have been friends with Jim Roller of Brownwood, Texas for a few years now. We both like arcade cranes very much. We contact each other by email or telephone. About five years ago Jim asked me to go to Belgium and buy these French crane machines from an arcade. As I remember, the corner crane was specially made for the arcade - a one off if you like. At the time I was very busy and had a lot of cranes anyway, so I passed on that deal. Pity, but you can't get them all. I think Timo Muller now owns them. I will try and contact Jim and ask him if he remembers these machines.
Regards,
The grabber.

Topic merged - Site Admin.

Looks nice enough and still running on 220 volt euro current (note the step up transformer)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1930s-Mahogany- ... SS:GB:3160

A time ago I found the maker for the curved Crane, it's G. Boudot

The lower machine is just stunning.....cannot believe any wife would reject that beauty in their living room......

Thank you so much for posting those - great to see.
So G Boudot were also distributors of other French, German and American-made machines.
I wonder if the corner crane was their sole product.

As it turned out, the corner crane wasn't the only crane they made. They also made a crane called 'Le Pont Neuf''
One sold 21-08-2021 on ebay.uk

As I can see on the pictures from the Boudet store they must have made at least 3 different cranes:
La Vraie de Vraie
Le pont Neuf
and I believe antoher crane called La Mills

blikspeelgoed wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:26 am and I believe antoher crane called La Mills

I'm sure that is naming the Mills payout pinball shown in the advert, I really doubt a French maker would name a machine after the largest manufacturer in the world at the time!

I have owned, at one time or another, all the different models of pre-1940 CRANES.
My favorite, by far, is the Stutz Traveling Yankee Crane (circa 1930).
It featured an overhead trolley system unlike the conventional boom and jib. ROGER