Coin Slot Magazine - #018 - 1976 - July [International Arcade Museum]
machines. It provides on one machine:
A prize giving fortune teller, a selec
tion of card hands, and a device by
which it pays out the winnings auto
matically in trade checks. When a
nickel is dropped in the slot and the
lever pressed down the reel revolves.
When it stops, it shows the hand
through the opening. If it corresponds
with the (poker) hand printed under
the slot played a check is automat
ically thrown out for the amount in
dicated. From one to five can play at
once, but only one can win."
The Elk, like most other one-reelers, was
offered in both a nickel-plated or oxi
dized (bronze-plated) finish.
Interestingly, the Caille Elk had a fairly
short production run. Adolph Caille was
MILLS CHECK-BOY
a member of the local Elks lodge. When members of the lodge found
Caille producing a machine with their name and symbol on it, they vocif
erously demanded that he stop. Dutifully, he did so.
Perhaps the thing that attracts most collectors to one-reelers is the
castings on the front and sides of the machine. While the Elk has relatively
simple castings, other machines such as the Mills or the Paupa and
Hochreim Pilots, the Mills or the Caille Check-Boys, the Caille Tiger and
the Base Ball, and the Mills Umpire had much more elaborate castings.
The mechanisms were often works of art in themselves, being "Rube
Goldberg" contraptions with brass and bronze fittings.
The Elk and Pilot were initially manufactured by Paupa and
Hochreim from 1900 until 1906 when Mills bought them out. The Pilot
is an especially lovely six slot token pay machine. The front casting shows
a large sailboat under full sail. The sides have equally attractive castings of
dinghies. Due to the success of the Paupa and Hochreim machines, Mills
and Caille both introduced imitations.
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The Mills version weighed
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84 pounds and
http sold for $60 while the Caille Check-Boy with a simpler
mechanism weighed 60 pounds and also cost $60. The front castings of
both machines show a Trojan soldier sounding a herald on the left while a
forked-tongue dragon eyes him on the other side.
© The International Arcade Museum
8
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