FORUM

Hey Andrew, yes we always look forward to photos of uncommon machines on this site, and especially saved from oblivion. As far as the expanse of Bob's former collection, where to start!? When I first met him in 1990 he tracked us down on his only visit to Perth. Even then his collection numbered approx 230 machines, and many of those being world class rarities. Plus all the other machines he'd once owned but later horse traded to better his collection. I know he has a master list with dates when they came in and then out of the collection. I'd guess the total he owned will likely number maybe 350-375 total? Very impressive for a high end hobbyist and not professional dealer or restorer. When you consider that he was 50 years of age when he first started collecting in 1980, he was certainly a late bloomer!

May I also add that like Gameswat, Bob was a master restorer and a genuine friend to all fellow collectors. He will be missed for a very long time.

J Peterson
Fortunate Friend, USA

Very true. I still sadly get a new machine or something and go to message him and remember.

Gameswat, John t Peterson, can one of you confirm that Bob was also known as "frog"? I recently found out that the web site on Musicola Jukeboxes by frog disappeared from the internet and I assume this web site was owned / operated by Bob?

I would like to verify this as I decided to host a copy of the web site at my domain: https://musicolajukeboxes.jukeboxhistory.info/

Beside my own web site on American Jukeboxes (https://www.jukeboxhistory.info/), I also host a number of other "lost" web sites like: TomsZone (https://tomszone.jukeboxhistory.info/), Seeburg History (https://seeburghistory.jukeboxhistory.info/) and Seeburg Ed's (https://seeburgeds.jukeboxhistory.info/)

If I am wrong and Bob isn't Frog, any help to "Frog" would be appreciated

David van Etten

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.

This Cricket themed Penny flip machine is photographed here in a 1989 Antique Trader mag when it was going to be part of an exhibition at a giant fair in Sydney, then later to be sold. When I asked Bob Klepner about it he said he'd had the chance to buy it sometime in the mid 1980s, but he'd been put off that it was in a highly altered state. But that's what's cool about it I said. He agreed, and added that as he was driving away had changed his mind, but on going back to get it the seller had also changed his mind! Bob told me that back in the 1980s he was buying on average a new machine every couple weeks, so he passed on a lot of things mostly due to price. He mentioned cast iron basket cases, that he'd sometimes never seen the likes of again, that he left because the seller wanted the ridiculous price of say $40 - and he thought that was double the going rate at the time...........

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

Thanks PM, I knew they'd copied it from someone but no idea who. There's enough differences that it wasn't just a Bolland that got revamped. They changed the coin entry for some reason so it doesn't enter the playfield top rhd.

Imitation is not always the sincerest form of flattery.

J Peterson
Imitating reality in America

pennymachines wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:41 pm For anyone wondering what its 'unaltered state' might have been:

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

sentimental salvage wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 1:06 am

pennymachines wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:41 pm 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.

sentimental salvage wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 1:06 am 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?

Here you go. The case is not very deep

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

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.

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

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.

gameswat wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 6:41 am 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/

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

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.