( _____ T_J\_L_E_s_H_
o?_ed F_by_J'!_ck H_Fre_!_d_u_u_N_T _ _ _ _ )
( Please read my footnote at the end of this article)
This tale is submitted by Bill Howard of Akron Ohio. It is not really a tale of finding but of the hunt to make
it a complete machine, with a mechanism that functioned as the machine was designed for. We all know
that creating an unknown mechanism is almost impossible but in this case .....
PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF
Anyone who knows my close friend, Tom
Gustwiller, is aware that he can be a very persistent,
relentless man when it comes to his collection goals.
And anyone who knows me, knows of my passion
for unique and significant examples of coin operat-
ed machines. These realities led me to acquire, sell,
and then reacquire a trade stimulator known as the
AUTOMATIC TRADER.
This story started at Mel Getlan's auction a few
years ago in New York. Paul Hindin, Jack Freund
and I, along with a few others, took a curious inter-
est in this machine, principally because it made lit-
tle sense in it's then condition. There were clear
signs that we were looking at a very rare machine,
both because none of us had seen one before, and
because it was mechanically unique. The first tip-off
as to its unique character was its promise to "Deliver
the Goods", as written under its name on the paper,
attached to the glass in front of the machine. It
closely resembled the Little Dream machines of the
late teens and early 20's of the last century. When
you dropped your penny, you got a stick of gum if
your penny fell through the pins in the middle of the
machine. If the coin went into the A, B or C chutes
on either side of the machine, you received five
cents, ten cents or twenty five cents in merchandise
from the store proprietor, who then flushed the win-
ning coin into the cash box so no one tried to "dou-
ble up" on a win.
So, you say, "What's the big deal?" The deal is that,
although the lever to flush the winning coin was
10
by Bill Howard
present in its original form and, although the origi-
nal gum chute to accommodate a stick of gum to the
loser was present in its original form, any outside
way to release the gum was 1) nowhere to be found
and 2) never attached in the first place. So how did
the gum get disbursed? Clearly, the automatic
stored-energy from the coin itself had to be the cat-
alyst--from inside the machine. The player was to
get his gum automatically when he lost without
doing a thing. This feature stood the machine apart
from the traditional "target machines," where the
player had to activate a mechanism to get the gum.
Hence the promise that this machine "Delivers the
Goods."
Collector Ken Rubin wrote an article for C.O.C.A.
in March 2002 explaining the automatic stored-
energy drop-win machines. In it, he discussed this
category of machines. The machine conceptually the
closest to THE AUTOMATIC TRADER was the
Zeno, where the weight of the coin gave you a stick
of gum every time.
No type of machine in the above category, however,
is quite like the AUTOMATIC TRADER because
the TRADER does not give you the gum every time
based on automatic-stored energy: it only dispenses
the gum if you lose. If you won, you got merchan-
dise, not gum. THUS, THE STORED-ENERGY IS
RANDOM, AS IF THE COIN HAS TO THINK.
And neither I, nor anyone I have ever discussed this
machine with, has ever known of one like it
mechanically.