Australian Manufactured Coin Op Machines

[gameswat]

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

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

So you mean the B&W advert PM posted, that's by Bolland, but the floor model is an Aussie copy of that.

[pennymachines]

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

Can we see a picture of it?

The B/W picture is from the Bolland Catalogue and is the only version I've seen in the UK. It may have been made by the British Manufacturing Co. (like the similar looking Dodge-Em, Climbing the Alps and Lifeline).

Perhaps the Australian game is cribbed from this design, rather than a modified BMCo?

[sentimental salvage]

Here you go. The case is not very deep

[sentimental salvage]

Also, what appears to be Climbing The Alps but Over The Mountain instead.

[pennymachines]

Cool.
I was going to say, based upon the distinctive style of the painted playfield, the front, at least, of your Cricketer looks like it was originally BMCo., but the Over The Mountain looks like an Australian copy of Climbing The Alps or Over The Falls. So maybe they both are... It has slightly more in common with the metal cased Crossing The Alps, which used brass runners to guide the coins.



The only patent number 173629 I could find was 1920s British bicycle related. Possibly just a ruse?

The BMCo Miniature Cricket cabinet is quite shallow.

[sentimental salvage]

Thanks for that. So was the Ironclad “Crossing the Alps” a Bollands machine?

[pennymachines]

I think so, but as I've mentioned before, BMCo and Bollands activities were much entwined.
All the iron-clads - Crossing The Alps, Circle of Pleasure, Rolling Road, Heaven and Hell, Oracle, Predicta (and a few others) are attributed to Bollands, but wooden-cased Climbing The Alps was advertised under the BMCo name in the World's Fair on the 5th of July 1930 (Braithwaite). The example pictured in the Museum has the small "B.M.Co. 336, Coswell Rd. E.C.1." text on its marquee. According to Braithwaite, the wooden-cased Lifeline is Bolland. This attribution came from John Gresham and I can't discern what it says on the marquee.

[jukeboxhistory]

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.

Just FYI: I am now in contact with Frog's widow who is locating some of his material. In the meantime I created a new Musicola Jukebox website : https://musicolajukeboxes.jukeboxhistory.info/

[pennymachines]

Excellent!
I've updated the Archive link to the website.

[gameswat]

I've never seen this unusual Nutt & Muddle "Jubilee Monarch" slot before. As seen in the November 1993 Loose Change magazine, Aristocrat article.

The caption reads: "This Nutt & Muddle Jubilee Monarch is typical of the type of mechanical slot machines produced during the early 1950s in Australia. Note the similarity of the mechanism to the American counterpart. Nutt & Muddle went through a series of owners. The Jubilee name was acquired by Aristocrat in 1985.

Huh, not typical at all! The machine seems to be a Jackpot only game, instruction says "SELECT ONE OR MORE CARDS up to SEVEN JACK POT COMBINATIONS". It only shows one line of cards, not the usual three, with losers above and below, so must have been to make it easier for players to understand that only three of a kind paid.

[pennymachines]

Weird! It appears to be an AC Novelty Multibell mechanism stuffed into a slightly modified Jubilee case.

You choose which card symbol or symbols to back by inserting coins in one or more of the seven coin acceptors. If your selection comes up on the first reel you're guaranteed a win. The last reel indicates how much you win (odds). If your symbol comes up on all three reels, you win one of the seven possible jackpots (paid from the coin tube).

[badpenny]

Strewth!

[sentimental salvage]

A Penny Patience machine, with the jackpot in it. I may get around to it sometime Also a couple of Dow/Bartlett horses.

[gameswat]

Just been servicing the 1921 Perfume Fountain machine I purchased from Bob Klepner and later sold. The current owner had lost the Patent I gave him and while looking for that online yesterday I stumbled on to the most amazing interview with the original maker from 1975!

The only other Aussie history I've seen like it is for the Musicola jukeboxes of the 1950s/60s, but this dates back to the early 1920s! He states an Australian production of 113 pieces. The machine on my bench has a cabinet and mech number #1, and the two perfume containers inside are #7 & #27. I don't know of any others, so being #1 it's likely this was kept by the maker as a momento. A real pity Bob never got to see this.

Basil Low 5: The Automatic Perfume Fountain

[arrgee]

Very, very interesting gameswat. Thank you for sharing this.