Working Models & Automata

[pennymachines]

Interesting...
It's online here: https://thehouseofautomata.com/product/ ... ing-model/

A coin operated electric ‘working model’ by Vincent Canova of Birmingham. Circa 1920. The exasperated Father is holding the baby whilst rocking another with his foot and waiting for a third crying infant to finish on the potty. Meanwhile the heaving chest of his recumbent wife deep in sleep makes one ask the question “Lads, is it worth it?”. This genre of coin slot automata were popular as ‘End of Pier’ amusements and featured well known subjects like the Haunted House, Drunkards Dream, English Execution etc by more common makers such as Dennison. Canova’s work is rare in comparison and this example is identified by comparison with the identical case of one featured in Heskeths book on Working Models. The sparse interior and surreal scale are all important signatures of work of this type and period. Materials and resources were scarce after the first world war and a ‘make do’ mentality prevailed in all areas of commerce. The artisan carpenter/mechanic composed his scenes as best he could but left us inadvertently with a definitive sparse style and a pennyworth of fun as his commentary bit home.

Price £3750

(Elsewhere marked as sold)

"The identical case of one featured in Hesketh's book" - compare and contrast:

[moonriver]

Yes, I saw that.
It looks similar, doesn't it?

[pennymachines]

Yes it doesn't.

[tim575]

Well, I was stuck inside all day due to rain, so I made another YouTube video. This one of my working models, just a few seconds on each, even gave it a music score.

[pennymachines]

Spectacular line-up. Thank you.

[arrgee]

I made another YouTube video

Interesting to see these, can you direct us to the other videos tim?

[tim575]

For anyone interested, my other YouTube videos are under the channel 'Secret Town Arcade', a couple of them have been posted here in other topics, but I am still adding more as time permits.
https://www.youtube.com/@Secret_Town_Arcade

[arrgee]

Thanks Tim, great collection of coin-op music machines.

[JC]

I love the Indian Fakir. Can you give any info on the machine - maker, date, nationality? I'd very much like to think it's British

[tim575]

Yes it is British, believed to most likely be made by and not just distributed by Samson Novelty. There are 2 of them known to exist with the other one being in the Davenport collection. The interesting thing is it uses the Peppers ghost illusion, which I would have expected to be more common in working models but was seldom used. In the Davenport collection is also another machine from Samson Novelty using the peppers ghost illusion for a different magic trick. Both of those have very similar style front marquee art, mine was missing the front marquee art which I still need to have re-created when I can find someone with the skill needed for that.

There is a long thread on this machine already in the forums, started by the prior owner of it and then continued on as I refurbished it and investigated the history of it including a full video of it in operation, you can field any other questions on it in that thread: viewtopic.php?t=3083

Another peppers ghost illusion machine from the same maker for those interested in that:
http://www.davenportcollection.co.uk/co ... od_id=1224?

[gameswat]

So I now remember the two machines in the Davenport collection ( Cutting a Woman in Half and Indian Fakir) came from John Gresham's collection, sold to Roy by Pat Gresham as I was there when he came to look at those and a few other non coin-op pieces.

[moonriver]

I have just seen another Samson 'cutting woman in half illusion' on my travels at Marvins Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Michigan
so they did make more, and experimented with the Peppers Ghost illusion quite a lot.
Similarly Darren's 'Haunted House' model, and Rye's 'Smokey Joe' are other examples.

mandrake Samson model.png (404.77 KiB) Viewed 1651 times

[treefrog]

I thought this had been posted on here, but cannot find, maybe it was a Facebook group

Anyway, interesting conversation of a Novomat Gunther Wolff machine with a these around the use of Crystal Meths I understand

Purgatory by Simon Drake from House of Magic…..shame not in landscape as it’s great

[moonriver]

Good old Engelbert!