Putting Coinslot archive online

[brigham]

In which case I suggest a less high-handed approach might be adopted.
Perhaps an apology if copyright has inadvertently been breached, rather than a disrespectful dismissal.

[daleman]

You may be interested to learn that Nic Costa, author of Automatic Pleasures, More Automatic Pleasures, and numerous articles in both the UK and US Coin Slot magazines has donated all his research materials (totalling some 16 banana boxes crammed with paper archives, photos, catalogues etc related to the coin op world from its inception through to the early 90s to the University of Canterbury Christchurch where over the coming months they will gradually be put online by the University. Anybody interested in the subject will be able to access it free of charge.
The establishment of the Nic Costa Archive will hopefully attract others to contribute items as well.
https://niccosta.org/

[pennymachines]

That's fantastic. Thanks for letting us know.
I'm assuming it doesn’t include the World's Fair Coinslot archive.

[13rebel]

Looking forward to it.

[badpenny]

What a superb decision.
I guess it preserves and protects his life's work from the misguided out there that think it's ok to rudely copy then present low grade quality versions.
As if they're doing everyone a favour.
Well done Nic.

BP

[daleman]

Nic has asked me to thank you all for your complements. A state owned digital archive dedicated to our subject is long overdue
It doesn’t include the Coin slot digital archive- and apparently the existing World’s Fair digital archive also does not include the Coin slot section. The university does have a copy of the World’s Fair digital archive
The Nic Costa Archive amongst other things does contain a series handwritten notebooks with dates, listings and notes of salient coin op info published in the World’s Fair from its inception through to the 1960s as well as other coin op related journals as well as an interrelated card system listing and dating thousands of machines and hundreds of companies. It took a long time to compile and will all take a long time to upload –if ever-(this was in the pre computer days).
There are two salutary lessons in all of this:
1. Greed/ selfishness- a certain now dead well know collector had misappropriated for himself the wonderful document bequeathed to Sheffield by Dennison’s daughters, as a consequence Nic was unable to refer to this when writing his book and neither was anybody else. Luckily following publication of the story in Automatic Pleasures the rogue collector was shamed and the ‘missing’ work mysteriously reappeared and is now thankfully available for all.
2. Family/ accidents. Nic for decades had been lovingly keeping a tape-recording of an interview he did with Freddie Bolland many decades ago. A very rare treasure to hear the old man himself talking about his life. This too was donated to Canterbury...but horror sometime in the intervening years his young daughters secretly got hold of the recorder and recording and taped their mock interview over the top!!! There’s no guarantee that your family will have the same interest in the subject as yourself!!

However, at last there is now a public archive in the UK devoted to Coin Operated Machines which will be accessible to all free of charge. Hopefully others with donate and help it to grow.
And any of you who don’t have a copy just to remind you both of Nic’s books are still available from Amazon –happy reading!!!

[arrgee]

That is very good news, hopefully others will be able to add their own valuable information/research to the Archive as well.

[treefrog]

However, at last there is now a public archive in the UK devoted to Coin Operated Machines which will be accessible to all free of charge. Hopefully others with donate and help it to grow.[/quote]

As a matter of interest, where is this public archive in the U.K. or are you referring to this site? Did Nic Costa move to New Zealand for this to be in Christchurch?

Well it would be good if this information ever gets finished and made available. Over the years you hear of so many who say they have so much history and documents that they will make available. Freddie Bailey comes to mind, and I should think some of the long the tooth collectors out there are sitting on pilesof info that has never been shared. As mentioned many times, the collectors world people put a value on “their” source…….

[bryans fan]

Wonderful news!

[moonriver]

1. Greed/ selfishness- a certain now dead well know collector had misappropriated for himself the wonderful document bequeathed to Sheffield by Dennison’s daughters, as a consequence Nic was unable to refer to this when writing his book and neither was anybody else. Luckily following publication of the story in Automatic Pleasures the rogue collector was shamed and the ‘missing’ work mysteriously reappeared and is now thankfully available for all.

The Dennison diary was bequeathed to Leeds Museums by the daughters and is still held at Abbey House Museum where it is not on public display.
The diary is quite small and unassuming from the outside and easy to see how it could have been overlooked in plain sight within bookcases for a time. The Museum's line is that the diary has always been there.
Abbey House Museum has some of the daughter's best working models on operational display.