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 Since the prices are out of date and many of the dealers/collectors may no longer be collecting the machine we have purposely left this information out of the web version.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).

Slots! Slots! And More Slots!
By Dick Bueschel

It sounds like a song; "We've said it before, and we will say it again." The most highly collectible vintage coin machine is the slot machine. You might ask why, yet there is no simple answer. Vending machines are easier to find, and generally cost a lot less. Jukeboxes are more entertaining, that is, if you are into music. Arcade machines, harder to find and usually a lot bigger, are eternally entertaining and also tend to cost less. And pinball games are the most amusing of all, at the least amount of money. Why slots?
Probably because of two things; risk, and graphics.
First, the risk part. Slot machines don't flip a ball in a pocket and run up a score, nor do they give you some form of return for your money such as weighing on a scale, music with a jukebox, peanuts on a vending machine, or let you see a peep show for a coin. They just take your money. And, if the machine is so inclined, by virtue of a set of reels or a video characterization, it'll spit some back out. There you have it. The slot machine epitomizes gambling. When you put in a coin you are taking a chance that something in the mechanism will line up in such a way that the machine returns more money than you put in. It's a risk every play. And that hooks people.
Are they fixed? Sure. But not the way you think they are. In the old days, say, back in the 1920s, machines were 60 pay, or even as low as 40 pay, meaning that for every 100 coins that went in, 60 to 40 came back out as winners. That meant that the operator kept 40 to 60 coins per hundred. That's pretty good money out of a machine. Say some mark pumps in $5 in nickels in an old Mills Novelty OPERATOR BELL in a cigar store in 1928, and gets $3 back. He's lucky, because that more normal 60 player/40 operator percentage stretches across the long haul, meaning that the guy that gets a 20 coin (or $1, big money then) jackpot for a nickel offsets the odds, meaning that the machine has to make up for that by giving less than 60 coins back to most people. So the risk of a return was high.
Collectors love these old machines because they are fun to play, the risk is gone when it sits in your own home (unless you're nicking your friends and neighbors pretty good, which is illegal) and they look good.
That's the graphics part. Because slot machine paid their operators and owners well, they wanted to attract play. And the best way to attract the attention of people, men and women, is to look outstanding. Thus most of the terrific design formats assigned to coin machines were applied to the slots. The old floor machines of the turn of the century (the last one, not the one coming) are standing monuments to popular culture and public arts. Their cabinets were often of beautiful quarter-sawed oak, with iron castings al over the machine finished in nickel, copper or other platings to create an ormolu appearance that made them towers of design. And did that ever attract the play! Even music boxes were added to some. To this day these machines are valuable, surviving a hundred years because they looked good in spite of the fact they were illegal wherever they were at some point in time.
The 1930s machines added their own good looks with interesting front castings, by now made of aluminum. Elaborately designed fronts with cast eagles, horns of plenty, horses, Romans, indian chiefs and many other graphic motifs characterized the slots of the 1930s through the 1950s and even beyond, with the smooth sided Mills "Hightops" and Jennings SUN CHIEF machines taking over into the 1960s and 1970s. By that time the modern boxy and lighted electromechanical Bally slot machines had entered the field, and held it for the next 25 years. It has only been in the past 5 or 6 years that Bally has been matched or surpassed by others in models and production. But with the coming of riverboats and Indian casinos across the country, and the growth of machine gambling around the world, this hasn't mattered as much as you might think. Many, many more machines are needed now than were in the past, so there is room for everybody. The interesting thing is that all of these newer machines are rapidly becoming collectibles as even newer models come along to replace them, with some states allowing their collectibility now as long as you keep them in your home or collection and don't use them for commercial gambling purposes. There's nothing like a modern powerhouse Bally or IGT machine sitting in a rec room that blinks and lights up and pumps out fistfuls of coins on a winner. It's exhilarating, even though the machine is a captive in your own home.
There's something else about the modern slots that is captivating. They pay out a lot more. And I mean a lot. Governmental controls over gambling, state and local, require that the players get a lot of entertainment for their money, with the rate of pay moved up to 87 on up to the high 90s in payout return. That means that for every 100 quarters (the most common slot coin in Indian casinos, although dollars have taken over in the gambling capitals of Nevada and New Jersey and on many of the riverboats) pumped in, 95 or so pop back out. In the long run that 5% take will give the machine the edge, but in the meantime, with a lot of small wins, and a bigger one now and again, you can keep up with a machine a lot longer than the old mechanicals of the past.
Do you want to see what machines are now on the market, and find out how they play? Then go to a casino, assign $25 to $50 or whatever to "research," and start playing the slots. I participated in such research this past summer at the Soaring Eagle, an indian reservation gaming casino in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. In fact, my whole family did. We committed $50 each for four of us, had a roaring good time for 2-1/2 hours, and then cashed in to get $176.50 back. The whole evening had cost us $23.50 for four, although the money did move around a bit. One of us was tapped out, another was $6.25 ahead, a third was even, and the fourth hit big and had most of the money. In the process we tried over a hundred different machines (Soaring Eagle says they have 1670 slots, so we only hit a small percentage of them) and almost as many variations of play. They have Chicago and Nevada-made Bally uprights and consoles that play conventional symbols, Bally video machines that simulate the traditional fruit figures (I, myself, did exceptionally well on those), banks and banks of IGT slots made in Nevada that offered literally hundreds of variations of play, as well as video draw poker machines (that are very addictive as they are truly interactive), Australian ARISTOCRAT slots in jackpot and fruit configurations, and some of the alluring Universal slots made in Japan that offer widely differing formats including football symbols (get three footballs across and dollar tokens start tumbling). It was a marvelous cross section of the near past and present of slot machine play, including pushbutton play (the side handles are still there on most machines, but all they do is trip a switch, which can be tripped easier by the button), bet build-up, and cash-in, with the machine holding your wins as credits on the screen, allowing you to push the cash-in button and get all the coins or tokens back at any time you wish. It was a veritable education in machines, formats, ways to play and the awareness of potential future collectibles. I must a

Q. - Can you give me some idea as to the year made and value of my floor standing slot machine? W. K., Fargo, ND.
A. - That's a terrific machine you have, an original Mills Novelty Company 6-way DEWEY of 1898, with the Dewey picture in the middle of the flag shield in the glass. This was an outstanding saloon piece. Major media figures had little protection against exploitation in the 1890s. So the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago appropriated the fame of Spanish-American War naval leader Admiral George Dewey, the "Hero of Manila," and put his name and face on the front of a slot machine. The DEWEY became the most famous Mills floor machine, and was still being sold as late as the early 1930s. The going rate for a DEWEY these days is around $9,500-$10,500. Nice collectible!


Q. - I hope you can help me. My husband and I bought this slot machine at an auction. We have had a lot of fun with it and it is a good conversation piece. The problem is we have moved in the last year and we have lost the key to the machine. Is there any way I can replace it? S. M., Claypool, IN.
A. - The slot machine you have is the Mills Industries BLACK CHERRY of 1946-48. It is a wonderful, dependable machine. But if you can't get into it, you've got a problem. The best answer is to FIND THAT KEY! Other than that, your next best bet is to get a locksmith to drill out the lock and put a new one in.


Q. - I have a Jennings SUN CHIEF, Serial 193,699. I am interested in its age, value and if it is a rare collectible due to the fact it has four reels instead of the usual three. C. S., Atco, NJ.
A. - What a difference a name makes. The Jennings SUN CHIEF of 1950 is a highly desirable collectible, and in 5› play retails at about $1,600. But it has three reels, the normal compliment. The Jennings BUCKAROO, on the other hand, is even more desirable and retails at about $2,800. It has four reels and a bigger Buckaroo payout. Your four reel machine is unmistakably a BUCKAROO, with its serial number 193,699 early in the 1954 production run. The only difference is that SUN CHIEF nameplate at the top. What you need is a 5› BUCKAROO nameplate that was obviously replaced by somebody at one time or another. It also looks a lot better. I suggest you try the Jennings specialist, Alan Sax, and pick up one to replace the panel you now have. That small difference in trim gives you a machine worth over a thousand dollars more than the nameplate you now have. Contact Alan at: 3239 Victorian RFD, Long Grove, IL 60047, tel. 708-438-5900.
Reply: Thanks for your letter. I replaced the nameplate with an original BUCKAROO from Alan Sax. I am enclosing a picture of the machine with the updated nameplate. I want to thank you for all the help you have given me. C. S., Atco, NJ.


(c) Richard M. Bueschel, 1995