with a twist. You insert your coin and tum the knob
setting the wheel spinning. The wheel spins and
stops. If you are a winner by the color there is no
automatic payout. You have to insert another coin.
During the initial sequence of the tum of the knob,
a cam rotates the payout "fingers" activating a
coinslide which drops the correct number of pen-
nies into the payout bowl. Further rotation once
again sets the wheel spinning. In other words, you
must play the next coin to get your payout from a
previous winning spin. It's a clever way to get
another coin out of the player and also avoids the
complexity required of the automatic payout games.
One of the particularly attractive features of the
Rainbow is the three color lighted circles on the
front of the case. The circles correspond to the win-
ning colors on the wheel and when the wheel stops
on a winning color, the corresponding circle is light-
ed too. This is the feature that requires the battery.
I was stumped by the problem of the light draining
the battery until it occurred to me that the player
would deposit the next coin in order to get the pay-
out, thereby turning off the light when the wheel
stopped (as they always do) on a losing color. Very
clever indeed.
During my disassembly, I had cause to email
another British chap for a technical question. He
took a look at the machine and responded: "It looks
like a British game called 'THE CORN
EXCHANGE."' I flew to my books and by golly,
Jez was right. There on page 67 was a picture of the
game with the date of 1928 and the manufacture by
the Essex Auto Manufacturing Co., Ltd of
Southend-on-Sea. The thing is, it was "THE CORN
EXCHANGE" in a former life. On my machine,
the beautiful script with the name had been blacked
out and the battery with associated lights had been
added to make it "RAINBOW ROULETTE". So,
who did it and why? What follows is my specula-
tion.
"THE CORN EXCHANGE" was introduced in
1928. It was intended as a takeoff on the "futures"
markets. On the corn game, the indices on the
wheel are commodities, not colors. Instead of three
coins for a winning "yellow," you got them for
"wheat" and so forth with the big winner (!) being
nine pennies for "corn." Not only were you betting
on "futures," you had to put in another (future) coin
to get paid.
Now, is that cool or what?
Unfortunately for Mr. Essex, the Depression hit the
following year and people were not too keen on bet-
ting on the futures market. I have no production
numbers on the game but I think it's safe to say
there were unsold games lying about. Someone,
possibly the manufacturer or a jobber got hold of
the stock and came up with an improvement idea.
Instead of trying to sell futures in a non-existent
market, why not make it a rainbow pot and throw in
some flashing lights for good measure? And so,
'RAINBOW ROULETTE" was born. The conver-
sion was very professionally done. They added a
metal strip to the door edge, the lights and the light-
ing mechanism and repainted the spinning wheel,
all of which is nicely done. The only cheesy thing
about the game is the handmade sign with the new
name. In spite of all this, they forgot one critical
factor of human nature and thereby doomed this
game. Can you guess it? I know you engineers
knew it right away. How do we play these games?
We "invest" our money until it's all gone. The
"punter" (British slang for "sucker") will stand
there pumping in the coins. With his last coin, he
hits a winner, lights and all. The problem is, he's
played his last coin. He cannot get the payout.
More importantly from the operator's standpoint, he
cannot advance the wheel to extinguish the light.
Dejected, the player leaves and the light burns ever
more dimly until the battery runs out. I think it safe
to assume that very few of these machines survived
the bitterness of either the players or the owners. I
may have one of the few games left.
That's the saga of "RAINBOW ROULETTE." I
feel very fortunate to have it. The story may be a
little corny but as far as I'm concerned, there really
is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
THE END
When he's not scouring antique stores on his
overnights, John can be found down in his tiny
workshop muttering over these wonderful games.
He would enjoy hearing from other collectors of
British big penny games. He can be reached at:
jp4@charter.net or (952) 891-2312.
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