FORUM

brigham wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:01 am It looks very like the familiar R&W wooden cases, even down to the players' handles...

I believe the handles are smaller than on R&W racers (and Chester Pollards for that matter) which, together with the close picket fencing, are the main external clues to the Essex mechanism.

gameswat wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:30 pm Whether any had R&W labels I can't rightly remember but I've always thought they were responsible.

Like this re-cased Ahrens Footballer (EH sale 2015)?


As these were found in the UK, with British mechanisms, we can rule out Mike Munves - and a similarity to the R&W wooden cases is evident.

HERNIA MYSTERY SOLVED !!!.......Many years ago I posted about an incident that happened circa 1970. I had purchased 4 huge English pier machines from a small American auction house. How they got there is a mystery in itself.
Two of the "Play Polo" machines were housed in steel cabinets which weighed a ton. They were not tin-covered wood as shown in this post..i.e. football, racer,soccer, golf.
So, the question remained, what were these steel cabinet machines that caused my friends and I to end up with hernias ???
The recent Morphy auction May lot # 5395 may have solved this mystery as it looks like my cabinets with a fancy paint job and fitted with a Essex greyhound mechanism...........confusing, to say the least.
GAMESWAT, posted that "Play Polo" was the most popular of all the games but I have found that this model is the rarest one of all in today's collections. ROGER

roger wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 5:06 pm GAMESWAT, posted that "Play Polo" was the most popular of all the games

gameswat wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 6:54 am Polo seemed to be a popular re-vamp.

That's a lot of extra info from my simple comment Roger. I've seen a couple more of the Polos than other games but I've never taken much interest in these revamped games so never confessed to know much about them.

roger wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 5:06 pm They were not tin-covered wood as shown in this post

I don't remember ever seeing any tin covered wood cases in my travels, just those streamlined 1950s all tin or steel cases with the older 1920s mechs.

Along with GAMESWAT, I am not a big fan of the revamps.......however, the Morphy $8600 sale price cannot be denied for item #5395 with a number of under bidders. ROGER

I received a request to post more pics of the Greyhound Racer from Morphy Auction this year inside out so here they are. Although auction description was suggestive of it needing mechanical work, the only problem turned out to be one screw had fallen out letting a linkage come loose, 5 minute repair. It looks like someone had already done a mechanical restoration. I also replaced the modern line core with a more vintage cloth covered wire.

Another one from Morphy Auctions, Oct. 16, 2016