The Gypsy Queen Verbal Fortune Teller

[roger]

funny money.jpg (9.23 KiB) Viewed 2840 times

Much has been written about the MILLS talking fortune teller.
CBS News reported that the machine has some missing parts plus restored parts.
Without a complete inventory of these repairs, nobody is in a position to make an intelligent appraisal
let alone a multi million dollar offer........
No doubt this is a fantastic machine but without all the facts I question all the hype.
Perhaps, tim.575 has some inside dope on this matter.

As to my $ 5,000,000 offer..........JUST FUNNIN ROGER

[tim575]

Well Roger, I can give you a big discount, drop a couple zeros and you could have a deal at just 50,000 USD, much less than others paid for the few replica of the Mills or the last Gypsy Queen that sold at Morphy in 2021...

Meanwhile for everyone to get a taste of what this machine does, here is a U-tube video of mine in action, with sound from the 3rd fortune recovered from the Edison player cylinder added. The recovered sound file is clean; the noise in the video is from my leaving all the machine and game room background noise in place.

[roger]

Thanks tim575 for the great video and generous discount........ However, my post referred to the Mills machine owned by the Montana Heritage Commission.......... ROGER

[john t peterson]

Just for the record, the Montana Mills machine reproductions were produced by Larry Bieza of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gameswat and I saw one in action in Larry's home years ago. It was quite impressive, and huge!

J Peterson
Past fortunate, USA

[roger]

How come John T. Peterson assumes I can"t afford to buy the one and only ORIGINAL Mills talking fortune teller.

When David Copperfield made his offer, nobody tried to pawn off a reproduction for the real thing.

I may only have a sixth grade education but I am not stupid.............ROGER

[moonriver]

Just for the record, the Montana Mills machine reproductions were produced by Larry Bieza of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gameswat and I saw one in action in Larry's home years ago. It was quite impressive, and huge!

J Peterson
Past fortunate, USA

........and here it is! A magnificent job

[moonriver]

Meanwhile for everyone to get a taste of what this machine does, here is a U-tube video of mine in action, with sound from the 3rd fortune recovered from the Edison player cylinder added. The recovered sound file is clean; the noise in the video is from my leaving all the machine and game room background noise in place.

Wonderful !

[moonriver]

Since you asked, here is the 'long' answer...

Your theory for the Esmeralda description and auction house blurb makes complete sense as does the 'wax head' description.
There is a Sibille Queen of Hearts at US restorers, game room suppliers fairly recently, who were buying up all the cheaper auction machines and video their before and after restorations on youtube but I can't seem to find the link at the moment. The fortune cards on Sibille rotate on a disc to appear under the hand. I don't know what sound it plays, but does dispense cards.

[pennymachines]

Brief clip of verbal Gypsy Queen here.
(Seems to be from a movie...)

[tim575]

That's a great find. Maybe some forum members will be able to identify the actors and/or movie, or estimate date range of the other machines in it.
I had only previously seen one still photo of one on location, which had a different top marquee.

[tim575]

So the one that was in the Smith collection was just resold in the Morphy April 2023 auction, with fierce bidding from 2 collectors ending near the high end of the estimate. I understand from observers one bidder may have been in/from Europe and the other in the USA, I don't know which got it, so I don't know if this one will be staying in the USA with the other 2, or heading off to some country on the other side of the ocean. The other 2 machines in the USA both have photos posted by the current owners on Facebook, so the collectors of those are in the public view. Don't know if the new owner will be posting anything anywhere or keeping private about it, although someone on the forum may have at least heard what country it will end up in. Meanwhile the repro cylinders to use instead of the original damaged one for mine are in transit from Vulcan Records, I hope to get them in the next week to finish up restoration of mine to a more reliable working condition, I had extra cylinders made as there was interest in those from 2 parties.

[moonriver]

Well it wasn't me that bought it Tim.
Which one was DuWayne's?

[tim575]

The one that once was in DuWayne's collection is now proudly on display in the Bilotta collection (tickets available to the public). Although you only see an edge of it in collection example photos at https://bilottacollection.com.

[tim575]

I didn't think you got it Moonriver, I doubt either of our collector pockets are deep enough to causally pick up something like that, I know mine isn't.

[john t peterson]

Scrolling through the Bilotta web site, the ticket prices seem rather steep for the demonstrated items. I think your collection is better, Tim.

J Peterson
Vote for Tim, USA

[moonriver]

I didn't think you got it Moonriver, I doubt either of our collector pockets are deep enough to causally pick up something like that, I know mine isn't.

Roger said that too!
Nice and easy to get to in FL , I feel a visit coming on

[tim575]

If you are on Face Book, you can find him there as well with additional photos posted with more of the penny arcade vs Sci-fi/toy items. I don't think the main website has been updated in a while. He has several fortune tellers. And yes, much less expensive to visit my collection ;) , but not that often collectors are in my area vs East Coast or Southern California. I am hoping we may learn the fate of the Smith collection one if it ends up in a public collection. Meanwhile, the repro cylinders I had made from the recovered audio on mine are due this week from Vulcan Records. I don't dare try to put any more plays on the one original cracked cylinder I have for fear of it breaking apart.

[tim575]

So it appears the Gypsy Queen that sold last month (originally in the Smith Collection) is on its way to a Coin-Op Museum in the Netherlands. So, like the one on USA east coast, it may end up on public display at some point.

[tim575]

Feedback received from a new Facebook member shows that another Gypsy Queen was located at the Pikes Peak Ghost Town museum in Colorado Springs 35 years ago. Also noted it was missing the original audio system and something else was installed in place of that. It shows up at the end of this video link, from appearance and note of missing original audio system it is clearly not one of the other 3 known examples, so now there are 4 known examples of this very rare fortune teller.
Now that I have had mine for over 10 years and it is fully restored with a set of spare cylinders for the Edison player, I have decided to put it up for sell. It will be in the October Morphy Auction in Las Vegas this fall. First time I have put something into a Morphy auction. Question is how many new games will I buy in that same auction...

[moonriver]

It's always nice when the high value item you're selling comes up and sells before the other lots you're interested in buying!