by Sandy Lechtick
People who know me or have visited my arcade in Southern California know I like penny arcade machines
and mechanical advertising displays that are a bit unusual, perhaps a little bizarre or stuff that you don't see too
often. When I concluded early on that the really rare machines - especially turn of the century (1890 to 1920 's)
were either too pricy, impossible to find or already fully ensconced in the hands of collector extraordinaire 's (Ru-
bin, Copperfield, Raznick, Get/in, Leganke, Grimwade, Mclemore, Chase, and a few others), I lowered my sights.
On the other hand, machines of the 1930's, 40's and 50's and in some cases 60's and 70's are generally more fun
to play, have killer visual appeal and are certainly much more reasonably priced.
Being an athlete and competitor most of my life, (table tennis, gymnastics and beach paddle tennis) I have
always had a soft spot for coin-op machines that require a bit of strength, skill and physical dexterity. While I
really like gun games and Fortune Tellers, two of my favorite machines that are worthy of Tales of Hunt, are not
the most elegant, pretty or classy. In fact you could call them down right ugly.
"LEARN HOW TO 1'UNCH THE BAG"
About six years ago, not too long after I got bit by the coin-op
bug, a fellow collector was advertising on eBay and as sometimes
happens, we established a dialogue. It was determined that he had
a punching bag machine I was interested in, and I had a machine he
was interested in - an Exhibit Supply Card Vendor: "You can Tell
Her Fortune by the Color of Her Hair." We worked out a trade,
plus some cash.
With most punching
bag machines, you smack
the bag and it measures
the force of your blow on
a dial. T have one of those
(a Mills 5 cent) which I
like, but the one I traded
is an Exhibit Supply "Learn how to Punch the Bag." You put in a nickel,
the bag falls down and you demonstrate your pugilistic prowess for 30
seconds, like you were in an athletic gym getting a workout. Then a bell
goes off and it pops back up. It stands about eight feet and as you can see
is big and bulky. It is my impression there are only a few that survived.
As a collector, I have found that sometimes the machines that operators
thought took up too much room or didn't generate enough revenue or
simply broke down too often were pushed out to pasture. In some cases,
only a few were made and the inventory was always low. That might
have been the case with the "Learn how to Punch the Bag" and probably
the case with the other lonely orphan profiled in this article.
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