machine was "Exclusive Automatics." The machine
being offered for sale was one of these British revamps.
I know the game fairly well for I own one that I pur-
chased from a nice lad in England years ago, Photo B.
The auction started at the nominal offering of $9.99.
I was interested, of course. The ad stated that the door
was locked with no key. There was no way to ascertain
the completeness of the mechanism although the seller
did include the ever helpful opinion that "this one is in
fantastic physical condition and appears to be complete
with the entire mechanism inside (from what I can tell
without removing the back.)" He also stated "I have
not tried it since the photo plates are not present nor
do I have the correct coins as I don't know what they
would have been and didn't want to jam it."
Looking at the game with what I like to think is a
more experienced eye, I could see that certain pieces
of the hardware were garden variety replacements, in-
cluding the actual garden spigot handle parading as a
turn knob . This does not inspire confidence. Hoping
to learn more, I emailed the seller and asked for back-
ground concerning the previous owner. Might I have
his telephone number so I could hear first-hand what
other improvements he had made? The seller informed
me that the previous owner, an elderly gentleman, had
recently died. His grandson was the one who presented
the game to the seller, saying, "Granddad got the ma-
chine running just fine."
To recap, I'm looking at a quite rare French game
that is locked, of unknown completeness, with monkey
parts put on by a now dead man who also glued a par-
ticle board backing to an historic game of 100 years of
age. Why are I hearing alarm bells? To make things
even more interesting, over the short course of our dis-
cussions, the seller, out of the blue, informs me that the
auction is going so poorly that he intends to stop the
auction and sell the game to a local party who has of-
fered $650 and will pick up the game in person, reliev-
ing the seller of any packing obligation. Finally, he in-
forms me that ifl'm interested in the machine, it might
be mine but only ifl "show him the love."
Love. In my dictionary, a synonym for "love" is
"trouble." The only real question running through
my mind at this point is: how much trouble? There
is the trouble of physically picking up the machine, an
eighteen hour round trip from my house. There is the
trouble of getting into the locked cabinet. Then there is
the biggest potential trouble of all...what exactly is the
completeness of this game? There are cardboard cards
covering the painted panels. It's a safe bet the pictures
on the panels will have to be reconstructed. But what
else? It is, to my mind, a pig in a poke. Should I
bite?
You already know the answer. I bought the poke
for $750. A major factor in my decision was the 1,283
miles drive. Rather than being a minus, the drive was
a plus. This is because my dear brother lives directly
on my route to the seller, three hours short of destina-
tion. In addition to a welcome visit, my brother has
been holding a family heirloom for me, a handgun for-
merly owned by our father. Handguns may not legally
be mailed to private citizens in the United States. I had
been looking for an excuse to personally retrieve this
prize from my brother for some time. This was the ex-
cuse I had been seeking.
Family heirloom and French roulette are now back
home with me. Was my love misplaced? The jury is
still out. In spite of assurances to the contrary, Grand-
dad did not get the roulette game operating, not if what
I purchased is what he had at time of his death. The
cardboard panels rub against the viewing window pre-
venting them from rotating. There are also components
critical to the operation of the game that are missing.
Thankfully the missing parts are more minor than ma-
jor in terms of reproduction. Having said that, were it
not for the working example that I already own, I'm
not sure I could get this current mechanism functioning
properly.
Love. It changes the chemistry in our brain and
makes us do crazy things. Knowing now what I do
about my most recent love, do I regret my decision?
Absolutely not. I now own two of these fascinating
games, one of which works and one with future prom-
ise. You can finish the sentence for me: "It is better to
have loved and lost than ... "
I think you will agree.
The End
LovE TO TAlk AOOUT ENqli
WRiTE ME AT:
jp4@chA
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