Coin operated cranes and diggers

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coppinpr
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Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by coppinpr »

If anyone is interested I've just published a new section on my www.penny-arcade.info website. It's dedicated to Cranes and Diggers so, if like me, you're a mug for these machines that only grabbed one thing with ease, your money!! and would like to browse the 50+ photos on show take a trip to https://www.penny-arcade.info/cranes-diggers :cool:
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by pauljt71 »

Great update, always fancied a mechanical table top crane but not seen one available as of yet.

I have a few crane “bits” in the garage. Will post them on here and see if you know what they are from… other than a crane. :-)
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by pauljt71 »

Here you go, as promised. Here are the range bits from the garage. Let me know if you recognise what they are…
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gameswat
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by gameswat »

Paul, from an early Exhibit Supply Novelty Merchantman. This model was most often converted into Bolland working models.
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by pauljt71 »

Cheers for the info. It was part of a job lot I acquired some time ago. I have been looking for a crane for some time and was told there was one in bits in the lot I acquired, this was it! Still looking for a table top crane. 😂
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arrgee
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by arrgee »

Really good addition to the website and some great looking machines - just wish I had the space for one.............
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clubconsoles
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by clubconsoles »

Well done.
Great selection of Diggers and good researched article.
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dickywink
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by dickywink »

A wonderful web site with some fantastic crane photos and info ... absolutely love it

all the best ... Dicky
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by pennymachines »

pauljt71 wrote: Mon Jan 10, 2022 9:31 pm Still looking for a table top crane 😂
There aren't very many, especially in the UK. It took me years to find one.
Off the top of my head, the ones that come to mind are:

The Erie Digger (ancestor of all the novelty cranes) and its various 'clones'.



See James Roller's excellent website for more information about these (and all other cranes and merchandisers): https://jamesroller.com/picture-gallery/

See also Digger project

An early motorised copy of this idea was William Bartlett's Miami Digger of 1932.



Exhibit Supply's Iron Claw was another very successful version which really started the craze for coin-operated amusement arcade diggers.



The 1928 Scientific Machine Corporation Panama Digger is my favourite, combining great aesthetics with purely mechanical operation.

There's a nice example of the Panama on Jim's site.

This video of a slightly different model shows that it works like the first diggers; the grab automatically moves to a new position each go. The player can only control the forward/backward position.



Mutoscope also made two very nice counter-tops - which were essentially miniature versions of their floor-standing Electric Traveling Cranes, called the Junior Crane (all-mechanical) and Champion (motorised).

f491716fa7792ba998f58853661cafd4.jpg

The most common portable crane to be found in the UK (at least in my experience) is the attractive Buckley Jewel Box electric crane. See Buckley Jewel Box Digger restoration

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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by coppinpr »

thanks for the kind words regarding my site !WORSHIPFULL!
The Erie Digger (ancestor of all the novelty cranes) and its various 'clones'.
actually, William Bartlett's patents predate the Erie digger by 13 years, the first three Erie,Bartlett and Norwat all came out so close to each other no one is sure who was first.
https://www.penny-arcade.info/cranes-diggers
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by pennymachines »

coppinpr wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:00 am actually, William Bartlett's patents predate the Erie digger by 13 years
That can't be right. The Bartlett patent 1,882,563 is dated 1932, which would push the Erie digger to 1945 - far too late.

Some sources say the Erie Manufacturing Company's digger was introduced in 1924:
Freddy Bailey wrote:In 1924 a company called The Erie Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut introduced “The Erie Digger” a new novelty game that was designed mainly for the “Carnivals” and the “Arcades” that were dotted along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
The Crane Part 1
Jim Roller wrote:By the middle 1920s it was in full production as The Erie Digger and offered 1-cent or 5-cent coin slots. The miniature steam shovel was encased in a solid oak cabinet with glass windows on three sides and continued to be all-mechanical, using no electricity; not even an electric light.
https://jamesroller.com/history/

Automatic Age was advertising them for $100 each by 1927.

AA-1927.jpg


AA-2.jpg

Bartlett's patent was for an electrically motorised carnival digger which, "...employs, in miniature, the well-known excavator mechanism now used in analogous art," (i.e, already commonplace). On your site you say this was from a "design he came up with back in 1918". Can you cite the source of that?
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by pauljt71 »

Thanks for taking the time to post this info. Looks like a quest for the Holy Grail :HaHa:
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by coppinpr »

That can't be right. The Bartlett patent 1,882,563 is dated 1932, which would push the Erie digger to 1945 - far too late.
I know you wont agree with me (you never do) but the first digger built was in 1896 and Bartlett's first patent (manual not electric) was 1919 but he never built a usable version until 1923.
Several online histories agree with these dates (although I know you wont agree with that either because they are online) but they are there if you search
I wont comment again, we will just go with what you say..as usual
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Re: Coin operated cranes and diggers

Post by pennymachines »

coppinpr wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:14 am I know you wont agree with me (you never do)...
I do agree that, 'Bartlett didn't file a crane patent until 1932', as it said on your website yesterday. I can't agree that, "Bartlett's first patent (manual not electric) was 1919" without a link to the patent, or at least one source (print or online) that claims this patent exists.

Much remains unknown about the early development of the crane. I'm not sure we have a name (or source) for the oft mentioned enterprising American who converted a child's toy digger to pick up sweets at random in 1896 for use on carnival fairs. On page 244 of Arcade 1, Dick Bueschel said, "Diggers have a long and convoluted history which will be covered editorially in later volumes." Sadly, he died shortly afterwards. I suspect he had already compiled copious research.
Alexander Smith wrote:Sources differ on when exactly the first digger machines entered the marketplace, but most evidence points to the first models appearing in 1924. In that year, Norwat Amusement Devices introduced the Steam Shovel, while the Erie Manufacturing Company began selling its Erie Digger, which dominated the market into the early 1930s. By 1926, digging machines had become standard fare at boardwalks and amusement parks, but were particularly attractive for traveling carnivals due to their compact size and relative simplicity. In fact, it was a carnival concessions operator named William Bartlett who introduced the next important advance in crane games in 1926 with his popular Miami Digger, which allowed the patron to move the crane all around the inside of the box rather than just up and down as in earlier models. Unlike Erie, Bartlett did not mass produce and sell his machines, but instead dispatched licensed agents to travelling carnivals around the United States and Canada, who would operate banks of 12-17 units on his behalf.
https://videogamehistorian.wordpress.co ... ie-digger/
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