Playing the Slots

Britain's only vintage coin-op magazine.
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JC
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Playing the Slots

Post by JC »

Robert Rowland started a series of short articles in issue 35, where he takes an imaginary tour around the arcades in Mablethorpe he remembers from the 1960s. In his first tour, he remembers Shield's Tuck Shop and Kraft Extrawin.
Here are the pictures (sorry the Tuck Shop is in black & white. I changed it into b&w for the magazine, and forgot to save the colour version. Plonker).
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Tuck Shop
Tuck Shop
Close up view of the Extrawin rotor
Close up view of the Extrawin rotor
Extrawin mechanism
Extrawin mechanism
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Re: Playing the Slots

Post by JC »

Robert continues his tour around Mablethorpe's 1960s arcades in issue 36, and revisits an electro-mechanical machine called Twinkle Toes and the Brenner allwin Ball Past the Arrow.
Here are the pictures, including a shot of the Ball Past the Arrow mechanism, which was not published in the magazine due to space limitations.
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Twinkle Toes
Twinkle Toes
Close up of Ball Past the Arrow
Close up of Ball Past the Arrow
Ball Past the Arrow mechanism
Ball Past the Arrow mechanism
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Re: Playing the Slots

Post by JC »

Robert continued his tour in issue 37, and featured the Jackpot allwin and an electro-mech. wall machine called Twin Bell. Robert mentioned an internal switch in Twin Bell which enabled the operator to prevent the machine stopping on a high payout. I wondered whether this switch had been added at some time by an operator, or whether it was factory-built. Robert has since emailed pictures of the switch in Twin Bell, and an identical switch in another electro-mech he owns, which rather suggests that these switches were built into the machines by the manufacturer - which surely couldn't have been legal!

Here are the pictures as published in issue 37, plus a picture of the switch in another of Robert's machines - Top 10.
Attachments
Twin Bell
Twin Bell
Close-up of the Jackpot gallery
Close-up of the Jackpot gallery
The stack of pennies at the rear of the jackpot window
The stack of pennies at the rear of the jackpot window
The 'rigging' switch in Top 10
The 'rigging' switch in Top 10
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Re: Playing the Slots

Post by JC »

For issue 38, Robert featured just one machine in his tour of Mablethorpe's arcades in the 1960s - Electrodart, an electro-mechanical wall machine that will be familiar with many readers (it's sister machines include Rotofruit and Rotopool).
Robert continued his tour in issue 39 where he remembers a German electro-mechanical wall machine, Bingolett and a relatively rare allwin, Win a Race.

Here are the pictures, as published in the magazine. (A better picture of Win a Race can be found in the Museum on this site).
Attachments
Electrodart
Electrodart
Bingolett
Bingolett
Detail of Bingolett
Detail of Bingolett
Win a Race
Win a Race
Detail of the Win a Race win area.
Detail of the Win a Race win area.
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Re: Playing the Slots

Post by JC »

Robert concluded his series of articles in issue 40, with a recap of his memories of the arcades in 1960s Mablethorpe. Included was a b&w picture of a large eight player cromptons machine called Film Stars.
Here's the picture (it's unlikely that any of these machines have survived).
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Cromptons Film Stars
Cromptons Film Stars
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Re: Playing the Slots

Post by arrgee »

Well done Jerry, these and all the other items recently posted here under MMM really bring all the published articles to life, very interesting. I particularly enjoyed reading Roberts imaginary trips around Mablethorpe's arcades.
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Re: Playing the Slots

Post by JC »

Well Argee, I did say many moons ago that all pictures published in the magazine would be posted in colour on this forum (I just didn't mention how long it might take)! :woops:
Anyway, over the next week or so, I do hope to get things up to date, and post some of the pictures from past issues. So look out for some stuff from three years ago!
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