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Cover Story ..... by FRANK ZYGMUNT
Let me tell you the story. My son Frank Jr. and I
had a lead in Nebraska on 15 slots, 22 years ago.
We drove down in a major snow storm, and met
with the person with the machines, made the deal
and like always, we asked, did he know of any oth-
er machines around. He said there was a real good
one, a double with music not far from where we are
and they gave us the name of who had it.
We called them and asked if we could come over
and see it and they said sure.
So we drove over and to our surprise it's a Dou-
ble Venus with music. Needless to say we did our
best to buy it, that was in 1985. The lady 's name
was Dee and the machine was her fathers who use
to run machines in the late 1920's to the 1950's. He
was also the distributor for Wurlitzer for the state.
Two years later in 1987, my daughter Renee was
playing in a soccer tournament in Omaha, Nebras-
ka. My wife and I went down to watch her play. I
had called Dee and said my wife and I are in town
and was it okay to bring her by to look at the ma-
chine. She said sure, come on by.
We looked at it again, I made her a great offer
and she thought about it for awhile. She said, that's
a great offer, but I'll tell you what I'll do. When I
die my kids will be happy to sell it and they can
buy a new Jaguar car each. We will give you first
chance to buy it when we sell it.
As the years went by, I would send them a let-
ter or call them and ask how my machine is doing.
Six years ago, I called and I had asked to talk to
Dee. He said, hold on, Dee's husband answered the
phone. I told him it was Frank, I was just calling
to say hello. He had said Dee passed away. I said I
was sorry, I didn ' t know, and I will call back some
other time.
He said, it's okay, they have to settle out the es-
tate and he will get back to me. He knew Dee had
promised me a chance to buy the machine.
Five years had gone by when he called me and
said he was going to Chicago, could he stop by on
his way to Florida. I said, sure. By this time over
the years, we have become friends, all the calls and
Christmas cards. He came by, took a look at our
collection and we took him out to lunch and talked
for awhile. He was now 85 years old, and said he
will talk to his kids about selling the machine.
A year goes by, he sends me a fax and an email
that someone has been calling him for two years
and made them a big offer on the machine. He
wondered if I still wanted it.
That was on a Tuesday, we called him, and he
said he just wanted to make sure my interest was
still there and come and get the machine.
My son who was with me 22 years ago, which I
took a picture with him next to the machine when
he was in high school, was 15 at the time.
We got there the next day and took another pic-
ture, now my son is 37 years old.
We thanked him for calling us on the machine,
he held out his hand, when the deal was done, and
I gave him a hug. He had tears in his eyes, and he
said that it was going to a good home.
ABOUT THE MACHINE: It's the only one known with music, we took the Beethovan front casting
off and inside the casting, it said Venus, Callie Brothers. It's an all original machine like you like to
find them. Original music and the automatic rewind system all in place, working, top signs five cents,
twenty-five cents, great oak case, tiger stripe in the wood, no one touched the machine. It had been
in their family from the 1920's and in gambling machines collecting, it's as good as it gets!
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