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 Since the prices are out of date and many of the dealers/collectors may no longer be collecting the machine we have purposely left this information out of the web version.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


Summer Offers New Slot Machine Finding Possibilities
By Dick Bueschel

We've talked a lot about finding old coin machines. Sources suggested range from old buildings to the backs of barns, basements, attics, antique shops, malls, shows, junk yards (which are fast disappearing from the American scene; maybe the stuff on the "bottom" that's just beginning to surface as the land is cleared may have something neat for you) and warehouses, people and places. They all work. But the work is getting harder. Particularly in the case of automatic payout slot machines, the one-armed bandits of the past that often ran illegally in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.
But that's the way antiques go. When the "Good Stuff" is all gone, the "Bad Stuff" begins to look pretty good. Suddenly it isn't bad anymore, once it has made it to the cutting edge of collectibility. Who would have guessed that lunch pails, Howdy Doody artifacts and McDonalds glasses would have extraordinary value. Yet they all have their devotees. Once the prime Tiffany lamps and leaded glass panels were all gone the trashed, broken, poorly repaired and barely discernible examples were suddenly thrust into the treasured category because they were the real thing, as bad off as they were.
Back to slot machines. Once the really nice things are all gone (and fewer really good old payout slot machines are being found every year) the real things, no matter how badly decomposed or damaged, get to look better and better. Which leads us to a breakthrough idea. If you can't find them, dive for them!
I can't take full credit for this thought. Some, maybe. But not all. A collector named Tom Gustwiller, living in Ottawa, Ohio, has been tracking down diving spots for about a dozen years now. Another named Ira Warren, who lived in Brooklyn at the time, got all excited about the underwater possibilities in New York's harbor in the 70s, and I have been tracking down submersible spots along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Western Michigan since the late 60s. We all came up with half a dozen or more possibilities. The wonder is that we mentioned them to each other, jointly coming to the conclusion that the major vintage slot machine finding of the late 90s and after the turn of the century will probably be underwater.
Here's the scenario. Back in the 30s (even as far back as the 20s, and teens) all sorts of small summer resorts and roadhouses had slot machines on their counters and bars, paying off the local fuzz in ice, or just running the machines on a friendly basis as long as the gambling didn't get too out of hand. The neat thing about this picture is that these location owned machines were usually old clunkers when they put them in, so it is very likely that a cast iron Mills LIBERTY BELL of the teens could have been running on the check-in and-out counter of a motor inn or lakeside cabin resort in the 40s and 50s. I maintained a machine myself as a teenager in the 40s when I worked as a waiter at Jameson's Resort on the shores of Bass Lake in Pentwater, Michigan, during the World War 2 years. It was a 1931 Mills SILENT "War Eagle," a classic collectible today. And I know for sure that there were two or three resorts in the lakes stretching up the Michigan shoreline, from Whitehall to Montague, up north to Portage Lake, Bear Lake and beyond, that had anywhere from one to ten machines located on the premises.
Going farther back in time, in the 20s and early 30s, there were slot machine operators that had routes all along the Michigan shoreline, and north up to Harbor Springs. These were serious strings of machines, run in banks of 5 and 10 or more. So somewhere along the line a reform political candidate comes along, or somebody with a bug about slot machines wants to be sheriff, and the machines are in jeopardy. So are the people that run them. Out comes the flatboats, and out into the Great Lakes goes the contraband. The dump spot that has intrigued me for years is one about 400 yards off the Lake Michigan pier at White Lake. Reports are that there are some 40 or 50 machines there, and underwater metal detectors ping like crazy over what appears to be the spot. Will I, or someone, else dive for these some day? I certainly don't see why not. Once the land based machines are long gone and almost impossible to find, and the value climbs past the point where the rental of scuba gear and dredging equipment is significant, somebody is going to make that dive. If not me, at least I want to hear about it, or see it happen.
Tom Gustwiller's quest has been for river locations. He has four or five plotted out in the Blanchard River, the Ohio River, at the mouth of Sandusky Bay facing Lake Erie and in streams in southern Michigan. All date from the 20s and 30s, and maybe a few from the 40s. The submerged sites in New York Harbor tracked by Ira Warren can be pinpointed and dated. New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia ("The Little Flower") was adamant about slot machines and other gambling devices. When he first took office New York City and its boroughs were inundated with them, placed by the "Slot Machine King" Frank Costello (Costello switched to slots around 1932 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president and it was obvious the bootlegging business would end in a matter of months once Repeal was the law of the land). LaGuardia made it his goal to rid his city of the illegal machines as he saw them as a burden on the poor, making them risk what little they had to make a gain (sounds a bit like state lotteries, doesn't it). So in his election campaigns of 1936 and 1940 he made sure there were many photo ops showing him smashing the machines, with photographs splashed all over the media showing filled barges taking them out to the middle of New York Harbor and dumping them. Triangulation from the barge photos can all but pinpoint the spots, and Ira was even critical enough to determine that it was the 1936 dumpings he wanted because it had better machines.
The fact of the matter is that whatever comes up after anywhere from 40 to 90 years in the water can't be in great shape. But so what. In fresh water much of the brass, bronze, cast iron and aluminum parts of the old machines will have survived. If they ended up buried under sand in a hurry the findings may provide even more. Odds are the glasses will be broken, and certainly all soft items, such as the wooden cabinets, decals, award cards, graphics panels and other elements will be long gone, rotted or eaten. But a lot of that has been reproduced anyway, so it can be replaced.
Salt water dumpings, such as that in New York Harbor, do a lot more damage to the machines than fresh water river and lake dumpings. But once again, if the value goes up and the availability goes down, expect to see a barge or boat with recovery gear in the harbor some years from now, bringing up the loot of the past.
I only mention all this to open your mind to the possibilities. The summer months provide a great opportunity to look for dumping spots. The prime locations are resort areas that catered to big city people that wanted to get away from it all. That makes upstate New York, the Finger Lakes area, all of Michigan, most of Ohio, all of Wisconsin and Minnesota, not to miss Florida, North Carolina, the Georgia and Jersey shores, and anywhere that people of modest means went after the arrival of the automobile in the 20s prime areas of opportunity. Start by talking around. See what local people have to say. Every location that I and Tom Gustwiller have found has come from the mouths of locals who, once asked if there were every any slot machines in the area, came back with the river and lake dumping stories.
Maybe you know of some, or have heard rumors. Share them with us. I'd love to create an underwater guide to slot machine collecting so that somebody can retrieve these vestiges of the past through a sophisticated expedition in the present or future. You can tell me. I'll keep the secret, and share it only with the readers of this column.
Summer's over, but there's another one coming. Let's do something about it.

Q. - I own a 5-cent Mills "Gooseneck" slot machine that I bought at auction at Sotheby's in 1980. It worked fine until recently when the payout stopped functioning. Are there any repair manuals available on these machines? Are there any reference books that you could recommend? How about repair services? Have you authored a book about slots? W. M., Westfield, NJ.
A. - It is not difficult to work on a mechanical slot machine, and the fact that the payout stopped functioning doesn't sound too tricky to repair. My COIN MACHINES column in the February 7, 1994 issue of Antique Week covered the steps to be followed in some detail, so you probably already have that information by now. As for books on the subject, there are many. I suggest that you contact two booksellers that can recommend the right book for your needs, and both take major credit cards. Ken Durham is located at 909-26 Street NW, Washington, DC 20037, or call 202/338-1342, and Rosanna Harris is at 5815 W. 52nd Avenue, Denver CO 80212, call 303/431-9266 or FAX 303-431-6978. You might also consider getting subscriptions to some of the vintage coin machine hobby fanzines. They list the many dealers that shop and repair machines all over the country, and have articles about machine repair, maintenance and restoration. I recommend three of them: (1) Coin-Op Classics, a slick magazine with extensive slot machine coverage, $48 per year, bi-monthly. Call them at 714/545-9183, FAX 714-979-1526; (2) Gameroom Magazine, for similar coverage of pinball games and arcade machines, $24 per year, monthly, call 812/945-7971; and (3) Coin Drop International, covering everything in a tabloid, newspaper format, $12 per year, bi-monthly and soon going monthly, call 303/431-9266.
Have I written any books about slot machines? Yes, over a dozen. For 6 stamps I'll send you a list of my books and other coin machine items for sale, and I'll autograph copies. Send stamps to Dick Bueschel, 414 N. Prospect Manor Avenue, Mt. Prospect, IL 60056.

Q. - This is a Watling 5$ slot machine. Does it have any value? E. J., Seabrook, TX.
A. - Is your Watling slot machine "worth anything?" All slot machines are certainly worth something, and some quite a bit. Yours is the Watling BABY BELL of 1931. Current price guides value your machine at somewhere between $450 in rough shape to about $2,000 fully restored. Your machine seems to have been kicked around a bit and will need some maintenance and repair. When selling a machine you can expect to get about half of the listed price guide values.

Q. - My slot machine has been in our family for as long as I can remember. My father got it from Al Capone when he was staying in town. I would like to know how much it is worth. It works but does not pay off. P. N., Central IL.
A. - When you tracked me down at a coin machine show soon after you wrote to me, I suggested that your machine had a listed retail value of $10,000 for a Caille NEW CENTURY MUSICAL DETROIT of 1905 with the music removed, as yours is, in excellent shopped and working condition. I also suggested that you could expect about 75% to 80% of that value if you were selling. You promised to provide me with some proof that Al Capone had a relationship to the machine as many slot machines have been offered with much the same story. The proof was never forthcoming. Since then about half a dozen collectors and dealers have contacted me asking, "What in hell are you trying to do to this hobby?" It seems you were going from one to another, trying to get each one to up the price, while telling them that I said the machine was worth over $10,000. That's not what I said, nor was I giving you starter prices for shopping around. I thought I was trying to help a collector get an idea of value for a machine that didn't work. That's the purpose of this column, so please don't use and abuse it.

(c) Richard M. Bueschel, 1994



(c) Richard M. Bueschel, 1994