Rare machines in Australia

Show us what you found. Make us jealous!
Post Reply
User avatar
bob
Posts: 185
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:06 pm
Reaction score: 2
Location: Australia

Rare machines in Australia

Post by bob »

* Post split and moved - Site Admin.

I’m posting this here where this contribution does not really belong*, as somehow I cannot find the New Post button in spite of looking everywhere for it. I trust Mr Pennymachines will move it to its right place in due course.

I’ve been meaning to post this for some time but delayed as I only had poor photographs of one of the machines, the Clown Magic Ball. I still haven’t got a better one but will add one in the near future as the machine is here in Melbourne belonging to a friend of mine.

I am wondering if anybody can provide any information on two British machines that exist in Australia that I have never come across any other examples of.
The first is a wall bagatelle machine that is in the collection of an Australian collector who is probably the first person here in Oz to collect coin op machines. It is unlike any other bagatelle wall machine I have ever come across.


Mystery-Wall-Bagatelle032a.jpg

The other is the Clown Magic Ball, a large floor standing machine which uses a hairdryer type mechanism to direct a table tennis ball onto a fork which leads into a clown’s mouth. Originally the machine gave prizes to those who achieved a certain score in the time that the blower mechanism was active but this mechanism has not been functional during the machine’s time in Australia.


Clown-Magic-Ball034a.jpg


CLOWN-MAGIC-BALL-041a.jpg

The British collector brought this machine to Australia when he emigrated here in the late '70s or early '80s, binging his collection of coin op machines with him. It was a large collection including a Hawtin’s Clutching Hand and many other desirable machines.


CLUTCHING-HAND-MERCHANDISER-076a.jpg

Some of these were included in an exhibition here in Melbourne by the Performing Arts Museum. Sometime later the owner moved to Sydney and operated an old time Penny Arcade at the resort town of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains area about a 100 kilometres from Sydney. This operated not very successfully for about a year with the owner still living in Sydney. He subsequently sold most of the machines in an auction in Sydney for which I provided information on the machines for the auction catalogue which had the Clown machine on its cover. One of the machines that the collector owned was a very rare Pleasure Island pinball which was a version of Rockola’s World Series, designed for markets where baseball was not a popular game. I persuaded the collector to retain this game on account of its rarity and value and when he emigrated to the US shortly after the auction he took it with him and some years later sold it to a collector who specialised in the Rockola pinball machines.


Pleasure-Islanda.jpg

Has any reader here ever come across another example of these three machines?
speedwell
Posts: 108
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 2:16 pm
Reaction score: 0

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by speedwell »

No, but as always you bring to this site so much interesting information and pictures. Have you considered a weekly column?! Thank you for your great input. It puts many of us to shame. Must try harder.....
User avatar
radiochrissie
Posts: 209
Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2010 7:03 pm
Reaction score: 0
Location: The Iron Men

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by radiochrissie »

Re Rock-Ola, this may be of interest
http://rockola.buckwerx.com/aboutus.html
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by gameswat »

The info on the Buckwerx site and IPDB both show the same Pleasure Island that came from the UK to Aust, I think it's still the only known example. Unfortunately somebody chose to strip the cabinet back to bare wood, though all three other mechanical games in this series were painted. The outer cabinet colour shown above was a little off compared to the slightly darker grey on the playfield surround, so must've been repainted. Since this was based on the 1934 World's Series makes sense they shared the same gunmetal metallic cabinet paint.
Attachments
rockola pleasure.jpg
rockola pleasure.jpg (34.8 KiB) Viewed 6860 times
WS right.jpg
pennymachines
Site Admin
Posts: 6638
Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 12:12 am
Reaction score: 56
Location: The Black Country

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by pennymachines »

Bob wrote: Fri May 11, 2018 2:11 am I’m posting this here where this contribution does not really belong, as somehow I cannot find the New Post button in spite of looking everywhere for it. I trust Mr Pennymachines will move it to its right place in due course.
The button's in its usual place :o honest! But that doesn't mean it's easy to find... You have to click on the forum category you want to post in first, then you'll spot it, top left of page.


newtopic.jpg


The Magic-Ball Try You Skill Air Ball machine first caught my eye when Norm Sharp auctioned the contents of Sharp's Magic Movie House & Penny Arcade in 2008.


Sharps.jpg

As Daveslot noted at the time, the prize payout casting appears to have come from a Bryans crane. The game is otherwise unknown in the UK as far as I'm aware, so could it be a one-off, scratch-built or prototype machine by a talented engineer back in the day?


Image

I was under the impression that Billiardettes was indigenous to Australia, and therefore included it in the Arena Wineasies From Down Under round-up. I see it says 'PATENT' on the instructions - if there's a number we could solve this mystery perhaps.

Pleasure Island has to be queen of the Rockola mechanical pins. What a fantastic machine, based upon the most entertaining of their pinballs. Sadly, I think this may be the only example, but you never know...
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by gameswat »

PM, I feel the 34 World Series pinball really is one of the greatest purely mechanical games ever made, be that pinball or arcade! A work of art in so many ways, but the true genius is the correlation between the rules of baseball and how the game translates that with just 15 steel balls. I've never had the chance to play the Pleasure Island but I've always imagined the reason it's so rare is that the theme and game play have nothing to do with one another. How was this ever going to captivate and intrigue a player like the original? The third and last original game in the series is called Army Navy and this translates the game of gridiron. I've restored one and the mech makes the basic 1933 Jigsaw and more complex 1934 WS seem like child's play! There are three reasons I think that game is so rare - cost to produce would've been exorbitant, then for the average operator to keep running would have been very troublesome, and finally the introduction of the first electric game Contact in 1933, with only one solenoid and a bell it was basic but captured the player's imagination, and a bargain for the operator.
pennymachines
Site Admin
Posts: 6638
Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 12:12 am
Reaction score: 56
Location: The Black Country

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by pennymachines »

I take your point about Pleasure Island's lack of game logic, but it's a very attractive theme. I also concur with your comments regarding the genius of World Series.

I think another factor limiting Army Navy's success was that it really requires two players taking turns trying to score goals for their chosen team.
User avatar
gameswat
Posts: 2196
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:17 am
Reaction score: 21
Location: perth, australia

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by gameswat »

Funnily enough that never occurred to me while the game was under intensive testing in my workshop. I loved the hell out of it! It's an amazing game, but maybe I'm biased having spent so long intensively working on the complicated mech? I guess like the Retreeva the sophistication went over the heads of the normal players!?
User avatar
bob
Posts: 185
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:06 pm
Reaction score: 2
Location: Australia

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by bob »

Many thanks to Mr Pennymachines sterling work in cleaning up my contribution and putting it where it belongs.
His speculation that it was a one off prototype scratch built machine could well be right as the graphics on the machine are all hand painted in oil paint and the blower mechanism looked very much like a hair dryer of the time. But then so did the mechanism on the two American variants of this type of machine (one by Bally and the other I think was by Exhibit Supply) that I have come across in Australia and New Zealand.
I will try to follow up with the owner of Billiardette the patent number and with the previous owner of Magic Ball where in the UK he acquired it.
User avatar
bob
Posts: 185
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:06 pm
Reaction score: 2
Location: Australia

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by bob »

Well I’ve been in contact with the previous owner of the Magic Ball who now lives in the US and is a successful games and toys agent. He informed me that he obtained the machine in a rather incomplete and non functioning state from an antique shop in England. It was originally meant to reward prize winners with packets of cigarettes. He obtained and fitted a hair dryer and rheostat to control its speed which makes the ping pong ball travel higher or lower and had an artist paint the wonderful clown art work on the machine when he restored what he thinks was an incomplete prototype machine.
Similarly I’ve been in touch with the owner of the Billiardette machine who now runs a Bed and Breakfast place in a North Queensland holiday resort. He still has the machine but it is stored in his loft. He will have a look at it to ascertain the patent details when he has the chance and get back to me. I’ll post the details here when I receive them.
pennymachines
Site Admin
Posts: 6638
Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 12:12 am
Reaction score: 56
Location: The Black Country

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by pennymachines »

Found a couple more pics of the Air Ball...
Attachments
41.-Clown-Magic-Ball-1935-UK.jpg
41.-pic-2-Clown-Magic-Ball-1935-UK.jpg
nathant
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2018 12:43 am
Reaction score: 0

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by nathant »

Greetings, Nate Thompson here curator of www.buckwerx.com

I just joined Penny Machines to add to the "Rare Machine in Australia" forum posts.

I bought Hal O'Rourke's (tiny) Rockola parts business from his widow Susan O'Rourke after his passing. With it I picked up the Pleasure Island game, at the time I didn't know how rare it was. Hal refinished several Rockola machines by stripping the original lead paint off the game, then repairing, staining and applying a lacquer paint. I've come across a Jigsaw and World's Series he had done in that manner. Cabinet refinishing and repainting is nearly essential. Nearly every unrestored Rockola game I come across these days has broken glue joints in the cabinet and can't be restored without extensive repairing, nailing, glueing and refinishing.

I believe Hal bought it from someone in the US, but it is also possible he brought it back from Australia through his military career travels.

I still have the game, but have had to do quite a bit of tuning. But it runs pretty well, and has truly unique with ball gates associated with the World's Series "Balls" and "Strikes" channels. At one point I thought that there was one more in the US, but I no longer know where it is.

In regards to Army Navy, I agree with Gameswat that it is very complicated as compared to Army Navy or Jigsaw. I've tracked every known Army Navy that I've come across for the last 10 years, and so far only 24 exist. The last one become aware of was in England, and sold to a collector in Texas. It was originally a gold-top, but the gold had been repainted to silver. Mike Hasanov is currently restoring for it's owner. If any forum members know of machines outside of the US, please send me a note (nathant at spectralogic dot com)--I am keeping a list of how many exist. Perhaps that is called "game spotting".

-Nate
User avatar
treefrog
Posts: 4813
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:46 pm
Reaction score: 31
Location: Suffolk

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by treefrog »

Nate,

Welcome to the site by the way, very informative info to this machine, I am sure appreciated by all,

Cheers

TF
User avatar
bob
Posts: 185
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:06 pm
Reaction score: 2
Location: Australia

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by bob »

I've just heard from my friend in Queensland regarding the Billiardette machine. He tells me that all it says on the machine is "Billiardettes" and McNeil's patent. So it doesn't look as though it could be French but could be British, American or Australian. Mr Pennymachines states that he has always assumed it to be an Australian machine, but I've gone through all the relevant Australian patents and, I haven't come across anything like this machine. It's rather difficult at present for me to search British patents by the name of the inventor so perhaps someone in the UK could search for "McNeil's patent".
sentimental salvage
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2018 9:49 am
Reaction score: 0

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by sentimental salvage »

I saw that machine recently :)
sweetmeats
Posts: 157
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 11:33 am
Reaction score: 5

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by sweetmeats »

I have searched all English patients from 1880 to 1920 and found nothing, maybe it was not patented or done under a different name ?
User avatar
bryans fan
Posts: 822
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2003 10:15 pm
Reaction score: 7
Location: Somerset

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by bryans fan »

I too have searched for this and have drawn a blank so far.
User avatar
bob
Posts: 185
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:06 pm
Reaction score: 2
Location: Australia

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by bob »

Thanks to Sweetmeats and Bryans Fan for their efforts. And I have now managed to search Australian patents back to Federation in Australia (1901) without success for a coin op machine by McNeil??? US seems unlikely but who knows?
User avatar
bob
Posts: 185
Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:06 pm
Reaction score: 2
Location: Australia

Re: Rare machines in Australia

Post by bob »

I've found some much better photos that I had of the Magic Ball machine so here they are.
Attachments
Magic Ball 2113.jpg
Magic Ball 1112.jpg
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests