C.O.C.A. Times

During the late 1930's Exhibit Supply Co. adapted their
very successful Select-Em dice game cabinet into a 21 game
called Beat-It. They used three dice to form the player's
hand. The dealers hand and winning odds were determined
by a pointer, a spinning ball and roulette wheel. Plenty of
action in this game and it's quite hard to find.
Groetchen would shrink their 21 game in 1941 and call
it Klix. They used the same format only much smaller with
a front end that looked like an automobile grill. The house
window was moved again, this time to the far right. Klix
were made throughout the 40's except during WWII. This is
an easy machine to find.
Not to be outdone by its competitors ABT introduced a
non-reeled game called Skill Cards in 1936. This is a small
counter top pin game. It played Poker or "21" using 5 steel
balls that would drop into holes with card symbols. Not a
rare game but somewhat hard to find.
In 1941 Daval also pruned their Reel 21 game down to
midget size and renamed it "21 ". They packed a lot into a
tight space with the shutter mechanism, coin divider base
and gum vender all on board. This machine was still being
made into the l 950's. There are plenty of surviving exam-
ples available.
All of the games in this article are fun to play. They gave
the customers more action for their money. In eight short
years at least one dozen styles of Blackjack Games had been
created. These games were all produced in Chicago and
many of them still return to their birthplace in April or No-
vember to find a new home.
Photo credits:
All photos from Bill Petrochuk collection except,
Beat-It courtesy Robert Chaney Collection,
Skill Cards courtesy Lester Aaron collection and
Daval "21 " courtesy COCA website.
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