Los Angeles
The people on this town's Coin Machine
Row are still living on a diet composed of
one part of business and two parts of hope.
At least there's this much can be said about
pounding the Row's pavements-it isn't
dull. For every man singing the blues,
you'll find two others chortling over a few
pieces of new equipment and factory prom-
ises of more before long.
Everyone, from ·distributor to operator,
realizes that · the present period of shortage
is by no means confined to this Industry.
Although there is plenty of griping, and
some instances where operators feel that
.i?bbers are showing favoritism in the allo-
cation of scarce items, by and large every-
one is showing a surprising degree of
patience and understanding.
One situation, however, that is becoming
better known throughout this area and
will do certain people considerable harm
is the practice of some eastern and mid-
western manufacturers in sending new
equipment to the East Coast, leaving the
West Coast still machine-hungry. From a
·strictly dollars-and-cents viewpoint, those
manufacturers can't be blamed too much.
Shipment to the East Coast is quicker, less
costly, and the returns are faster. On the
other hand, such manufacturers are going
to lose a lot of goodwill and business as
reports come into this town of jobbers and
distributors on the East Coast receiving
all the new equipment they need. A lot
of the men out here were assigned lines
months ago and have maintained offices and
showrooms with the expectation of having
at least samples to show and take orders
on.
But what happens is that these men con-
tinue to sink a lot of their own money into
rent and overhead and have come to the
point where lack of delivery of even one
sample has forced them to discontinue
taking orders that have no hopes of being
filled for months. These men feel they
have carried the ball long enough for those
manufacturers who are now letting them
hang out on · the limb .
There's been plenty of talk about the
expanding industries of Los Angeles and
already several local manufacturers have
begun putting good coin machine equip-
ment on the market. If eastern manu-
facturers care anything about the tre-
mendous West Coast market, they had
better start channeling some of their East
Coast shipm'e nts te the West Coast, say
jobbers, distributors, and operators.
Aireon Manufacturing Corp. is a dis-
tinct exception to the above criticism.
Starting off with a basically excellent ma-
chine, this newcomer to automatic music
has learned the hard way-but fast. Ap-
parently having solved all mechanical
COIN
MACHINE
IEVIEW
84
,oa
,, .. ,
NOVIMIEII
ENc/111/ve IJ/$lrlb11tor1
for
BELL-O-MATIC CORP.
MILLS INDUSTRIES, INC.
INTERNATIONAL MUTO-
SCOPE CORP ..
•
THREE BIG OFFICES NOW READY
TO SERVE WEST COAST OPERATORS
See lls for
~'ANYTHllfG -WITH A COIN CHUTE"
MILL,:S SALES COMPANY
•,;
GENERAL OFFICES: 1640 18th St., Oakland 7, Calif.
In Los Angeles:
2827 West Pico Blvd.
In Portland, Ore.:
600 S. E. Stark Street
troubles and production bottlenecks, the
company is delivering in large quantities.
Frank Navarro of Navarro Distributing Co.
is getting Aireons in carload lots and sales
are booming. M. E. Thiede, general sales
manager, has just returned from a trip to
Imperial Valley, where the company is
reported to have made a sizable sale.
Frank Navarro has left by Con.stellation
for a ten-day trip to New York on busi•ess
matters co(lcerning Navarro Distributing
Co.
A big sale to an out-of-town operator is
reported by Dannie Jackson and Samuel
Donin of Automatic Games. Deal is said
to have involved 60 new slots.
Leonard Micon, reports a lot of interest
in the Packard Pia-Mor hideaway unit on
display at Pacific Coast Distributors. This
particular unit was played 2,107 times in
the first three weeks after it arrived and
not a single adjustment was necessary, not
one failure occurred, says Micon. Selling
a machine with such perfect performance,
says Micon, is not really selling but some-
thing like rendering a public service.
Clayton Ballard, northwest district mana-
ger for Aireon, in town on a brief visit.
Bernie Roberts, former marble table
operator in Lo11 Angeles and associated with
Automatic Electronics in the last years
of the war, is now engaged in manufactur-
ing decorative lamps under the name of
the Modeline Co.
Max Thiede, sales manager for Navarro
Distributing, is on the road most of the
time these days arranging for deliveries of
new Aireons to the extensive list of cus-
tomers the firm supplies.
Bruce Altman, formerly with ARA, has
joined Paul Reiner's Black and White
Records as Director of Sales Promotion.
One of the busiest spots in all of
Southern California is Paul A. Laymon's.
In from out of town during the past couple
of weeks were R. H. Causey, Bell; Paul
Hirschi er, South Pasadena; Lowell Ayres
and Carl Fisher, Inglewood; Ben Peter-
son, Jack Johnson, Stuart Asbhurst and
Lloyd Barnes and son Roy, Long Beach;
Glen McCarter, Beaumont; Ken Hathaway,
San Luis Obispo; William Wolf, Rivera;
Lloyd Barrett, Pomona; Carl Collard,
Stuart Metz and William Shorey, San
Bernardino; Dick Sharpe and son Dick,
Santa Ana; Cecil Fox, Fresno; Frank
Young, Selma; Patti Hawkins, Tucson;
Charles Bonney, Flagstaff; Harold Murphy,
Palm Springs; C. C. Peddicord, Anaheim;
and Louis Dun·n , Monterey Park, to men-
tion only a few.
G. F. Cooper, Riverside, was in town for
the Elks Convention the first part of the
month.
George Ehrgott, manager of the newly
established Los Angeles office of Mills Sales
Co., Ltd., reports that Bill Lanziserio, chief
field mechanic for International Mutoscope
Corp. has been in town holding school for
Mutoscope operators. Lanziserio arrived
here from Arizona and has continued on
up the coast.
Lucy Garcia, Ray Power's office assistant
at E. T. Mape Music Co., is off for a two-
week vacation in Northern California.
Bill Leuenhagen is talking phonograph
speakers these days. He has a speaker deal
coming up which· he promises will arouse
a lot of interest among operators.
Badger Sales is preparing a new parts
catalog, which, according to Jack Leonard,
will he a miniature Sears-Roebuck catalog.
Catalog or not, Badger Sales continues
to resemble the Union Station, says Bill
Happel, with plenty of incoming and out-
going traffic. Recent out-of-town visitors
to the establishment include: Leo Prestel,