This information provided via the courtesy of Vintage Slots of Colorado, Inc.

If you have an antique coin machine and want to sell it, please send me an email. If I am not interested in it, I will forward your email to a collector who probably is.


The following information is the web version of Coin Op on CD which was a book all about antique coin machines and it was distributed on a CD-ROM. This book was written in 1995 and sold in 1996. Please take this into consideration when reading the articles. There are no plans to come out with version 2. However, we do plan on periodically updating the information on the web version.
The CD version of the book has pricing information as well as a dealer directory. Since the prices are out of date and many of the dealers/collectors may no longer be collecting the machine we have purposely left this information out of the web version. However, we do keep in contact with many dealers and collectors who are actively buying and selling machines and would be happy to put you in touch with one if you have a machine you are looking to sell.

If you are looking to purchase an antique coin machine you may also send me an email and I will put you in touch with a reputable dealer. Odds are, I will not be selling the machine you are looking for (since I rarely sell any machines).


Arcade Machines Are A Card
By Dick Bueschel

In the two plus years of conducting this column only one reader contacted me to ask if they might have the name of someone who sent in a question because they wanted to buy the vending machines mentioned. So I checked with the letter writer to tell them they had a buyer, and never heard back. That was it, until the June 21, 1993 issue of Antique Week. One of the featured questions was about an Exhibit Supply Company STREAMLINE CARD VENDER of 1940. Within a week after the column appeared I had been contacted by four potential buyers for the machine. So I contacted the letter writer, and this time it looks like a deal will be made between two parties. But what two? I don't know; that's up to the seller.
But why should a lowly arcade card garner such attention and desirability? I guess I should start right out by retracting the description of "lowly," because it seems that the action in vintage coin machines may be in for one of its rare but great shifts. Perhaps the day of the arcade machine is coming.
Arcade machines are a form of coin-operated machine that have long been a thing apart. Their function is to amuse and entertain. They aren't gambling machines in the same sense as automatic payout slot machines, or even trade stimulators or counter games with which you could get a multiplied return on your investment if you were lucky. Arcade machines aren't luck machines, although they often require a certain degree of skill to play. Arcade machines deliver nothing more or less than what they say they do. You get exactly what you pay for. Most classes of vintage coin machines have a very rigid and limited range of return for your investment, whereas arcade machines can range all over the map in entertainment and amusement while refraining from any of the allurements of other coin machines. In a way they follow a variation of the Sherlock Holmes dictum. Once you eliminate the function and return of the better known coin machines (such as the cash payouts of slots, the cigar or merchandise winning offerings of trade stimulators and counter games, the moving ball of a pinball game, the music of a jukebox, a vended product or service provided by a vending machine, or the revelation of your weight as provided by a coin-op scale) whatever remains (and that's wide open, ranging from games to athletic tests; mechanical automatons to exhibitions of real things or events; shockers, memorabilia stampers, fortune tellers and phrenological head tests; from diggers to bowlers to shuffleboards; picture takers and voice recording booths; peep shows and early movies; postcard, picture card and risque card venders; shooting and target and dart throwing and ball bouncing and balloon bursting tests of skill; rides for kiddies, foot vibrators and the many things operated by a coin that haven't been mentioned) must be arcade machines. It is the broadest class of coin-op, embracing virtually everything that is avoided by the other machine classes. The one common ground is that these coin machines are there to entertain, and the Penny
The late 19th century examples had no machine class name as the Penny Arcade, really starting around 1905, remained to be invented. The early placement was in saloons and amusement centers, often on the edge of town at the end of the streetcar line where the transit company built an amusement park to get a full fare from the riders, both going and coming. The machines they used started out with early amusements, and depictions of the new coming age of technological wonders.
The saloon pieces had a long heritage. The "Boys" in the bars loved to prove their superiority to each other, loser buying the drinks. As a result all sorts of bartop athletic and skill tests were developed over the years. Hand grip tests, lung (blowing up a balloon, or weight) tests, devices that measured the strength of a punch and all sorts of other ingenious devices (including Indian Wrestling machines) were common bartop or floor standing pieces. But they didn't bring the house any money; only losers that had to buy. So when the capability of putting coin control into a machine came along in the middle 1880s, the saloon games were among the very first to be so fitted. Now whenever a braggart said he had a stronger grip than anyone else, the barkeep pointed to the HAND POWER TEST MACHINE on a stand, and told him to drop in a nickel and prove it. The test made the rounds of the boys in the bar, and the saloon picked up a nickel a pop. The same for peep shows, punch tests (many of which were named after the hero of the age: John L. Sullivan, the boxer), the nippy shockers (which were ultimately banned because they gave some people heart attacks!), lung tests (banned during the TB outbreaks because everyone put their mouth on the same flexible tube lip piece), lifters, bag punchers and all sorts of other athletic test machines.
Meantime, the amusement parks were picking up nickels by the drove with their peep shows and MUTOSCOPES, hauling in "white money" (nickel, dime and quarter coins) on machines that allowed you to play a soccer game with a partner, or manipulate boxers, or even (a very early game, quickly removed) have a two-sided COCK FIGHT. Exhibition machines included a fully articulated locomotive, first placed in railroad stations in the middle 1880s, with a steamboat version in one of the buildings at Coney Island. A Waukegan, Illinois, machine maker named Edward Amet produced simulations of a yacht race, or a miniature power station that lit up electric "Lightoliers" once the station got going after two pennies were dropped.
These marvelous machines soon had their own dedicated parlors in major cities, and soon even in small towns, with the Penny Arcades providing a complete array of "Automatic Vaudeville" for the masses. Early on it was for families, but increasingly the peep shows and Mutoscope reels got a bit racy, until the arcades had a bad name. By World War 1 they were side street entertainments on the sleazy side, and remained so to some degree through the 20s and 30s, regaining the macho gun and peep image of the past during the World War 2 years. It wasn't until the advent of the video game in the 1970s, and the colorful Atari and then largely Japanese machines of the 80s and 90s that the arcades once again gained favor, and began to move back into the mainstream of American entertainment. There was one year back there, at the end of the 70s, where arcade machines brought in more money than the movie industry. The upcoming popularization of virtual reality machines (for which we will pay $2 to $5 per game, or even a lot more) promises to provide a true rebirth of arcade machines in shopping mall locations, with Japan once again pointing the way. A recent survey conducted in 1992 revealed that 79% of teenage girls in Japan visited an arcade at some time during the year. Hang onto your hat. It's coming.
Arcade machine collectibles go back as far as the 1880s, and reach right up into the 1980s and beyond, one of the few areas of technical collectibility (and certainly coin-op) that are really over a hundred years old. The amazing fact is that most of the vintage arcade machine finds of the present are of machines from the 1905 through 1940 period that were stuck in barns, attics, basements, warehouses and other locations in the past and left their to rot. And after years of neglect, with only a few dedicated collectors who loved the machines, arcade machines are now coming to the fore with a rush to become one of the hottest coin-op collectible areas of the future. Even some of the early video games are becoming valued collectibles, certainly the early chip driven games of the 1970s. While most of them aren't worth the money to haul them to the dump, certain games are beginning to gain stature because they are fun to play. Now's the time to find them and keep them, because they will most certainly be worth a lot more in the future.
Q. - My International Mutoscope Reel Company viewer, made in New York according to the panel, takes British 10d pieces. It also has beautiful British paintings on the front and sides, a nude swimming off the White Cliffs of Dover. Its look and feel make me believe it is a turn-of-the-century machine. What is my American/British beauty worth? C.A., San Antonio, TX.
A. - Your machine is the International Mutoscope Reel Company Inc. ALL STEEL MUTOSCOPE first made in 1926 well into the 1930s. It was nicknamed the "Tin (only it wasn't) Mutoscope." The basic mechanism was developed in the late 1890s, and modified over the years. The circa 1905 original machines were cast iron, but broke easily. When the International Mutoscope Reel Company was reformed in the early 1920s a steel cabinet replacement was created to keep the machines running.
In this country these are called "Peep Shows," but in England, where they sold almost as many MUTOSCOPE machines as they did here, they are called "What The Butler Saw Machines." Normal retail value is in the $450-$600 range with a reel, or about half that if you are selling to a dealer. But the fact yours is converted to British coinage cuts that value about 25%. Except for that super colorful painting on the side. I can't guess what that's worth, but I'd say it would replace that 25% any day. It's terrific, and I've never seen anything quite like it.
Q. - What is my countertop stereo viewer, and what's it worth? It takes pennies and is operated by a trigger. It is patented May 20, 1913 by the American Novelty Company with a title card describing its contents as "Whiting's Miniature Museum." J.O., Yorkshire, NY.
Q. - I have a Whitney's SCULPTOSCOPE made in Cincinnati, Ohio. It has a reel type holder, and for a penny you can pull the trigger 16 times to see the pictures. With 48 cards, for 3› you can view them all. Is it rare, and what is it worth? E. B., Baldwinsville, N.Y.
A.- Your machines are an arcade "peep show" made as a low cost competitor to the American Mutoscope MUTOSCOPE. The producer was the American Novelty Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. American made about 7 or 8 varieties, all with the same 1913 patent. The earlier version was called the SCULPTOSCOPE and was a nickel-plated model that stood high. It was made between 1908 and 1924. The later model was called the WHITING VIEWER and was much smaller, painted black. Due to its odd shape it was nicknamed the "Acorn." It was made between 1922 up to about 1939 when they came out with an even sleeker version.
As for value, the "Acorn" models go for about $250 in shows and shops, provided they have a stereo program included and all the parts are there. The top, of glass, is often missing as it broke. It was glass to let in the ambient light to allow picture viewing, but you still had to aim it toward a light source.

Q. - I have questions about my LINDY STRIKER. Is it a trade stimulator? You put a penny in and hit the lever at the bottom and the airplane flies up to different spots. The spring that makes it jump is rusty and broken. Do you know where I can get one? And what's this worth? R. B., Allegany, NY.
A.- That striker game is a classic arcade piece. B. Madorsky made the LINDY STRIKER in Brooklyn in 1929 after Lindbergh was an American hero for flying across the Atlantic. Lindbergh popularized flying, and Madorsky cashed in on his fame. Yours is the LINDY STRIKER MODEL B without the gum vender with feet.
As for replacing the missing spring, lotsa luck! Very hard to do. You'll have to have it made based on what the old one looks like.
Valuewise, I'd put this in the $150-$200 range because of condition and the missing spring. In great shape it is in the $500-$650 retail range, half that if you're selling.
(c) Richard M. Bueschel, 1993