THE ELK THAT CHEWS GUM
by Bill Howard
The point of this story is that we can all stumble
into a wall and still find something good on occa-
sion.
The story begins at the home of Tom "Gus"
Gustwiller about ten years ago. I was there one
night trying to scrounge up a few items for con-
sigment for my booth at the upcoming Atlantic
City Antique Show. One of the items Gus gave me
for consignment was what appeared to both of us to
be an ordinary Mills' Elk, pictured here. It
appeared all original and Gus wanted to "move it"
and gave me his bottom price.
Every Elk that I had ever heard of, if working,
had to pay out a token if all slots were played.
Common sense. No blanks. So I started to look at
it closely to see why it was not working . First, I
checked to make sure it had tokens. It did. Then I
looked at where the wheel stopped; Cherry gum
with a red label. I then put five more coins in, the
wheel spun and stopped at ten cents in merchan-
dise, the bell rang, and I got a token for ten cents.
It soon became apparent that you sometimes got
a package of gum over the counter, and, when the
wheel stopped on merchandise, and that's what you
played, you got your token.
This brought me back to what my fellow col-
lecting booth visitor had said. The machine was
bogus because Elks were not made like that. The
wheel was bogus. But then why did the machine
not spit out a token somehow if you played all the
slots possible at one time? The machine looked all
original and "straight" upon close examination. I
decided to put the Elk under the table and go see
the Godfather, Mike Gorski, The Don of Westlake,
Ohio.
A few days later, Mike took charge of the Elk.
The more he looked, the more he looked some
more. Finally, he shook his head and said that all
the parts appeared to be original and "Mills." The
"crimping" of the wheel confirmed that the paper
had never been disturbed since first put on the
wheel. Sometimes you were to get a package of
gum over the counter - one of two flavors - and
sometimes you got one of five possible tokens if
you selected the con-ect slot. No such variation of
Elk has ever surfaced.
So there you have it; the Elk chews gum. I
would appreciate any information as to whether
another such example may exist.
I have enclosed pictures of this variation, which
should add greatly to the value of the machine. I
suppose the moral of the story is to stick your head
in once in awhile and know your merchandise.
And, yes, as you could expect, I bought Gus'
machine at his blowout consignment price.
The Atlantic City Antique show that followed
did not turn out to be one of the more memorable
ones. As a result, I spent a lot of time in the booth
taking friendly abuse from my booth partner and
friend, "B.P." Peirce, for convincing him to get
involved with the show in the first place. All bad
ideas seemed to have been my ideas in old booth
2081. To add insult to injury, a well known East
coast collector who always came to the show and
stopped at the booth looked at the Elk and pointed
out that it was screwed up because some creative
soul had put the wrong strips around the award
wheel, suggesting that you got gum and not tokens
if you played.
The tide started to turn later when "B.P." put
money in the machine and claimed it didn't work
because he didn't get a token, even though the bell
rang. I suggested that "maybe you just played the
wrong slot." He responded by telling me that he put
a nickel in every slot, all five. As the story unfold-
ed, this turned out be be one of "B.P."'s most for-
tuitous complaints.
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