Coin Slot Magazine - #034 - 1977 - November [International Arcade Museum]
shipping. The audacity of the "Slot Machines for Sale" and "Slots
Wanted" advertising in the trade publications, and now even in class
ified newspaper advertising, glosses over the fact that there is a major
problem in getting the goods from the seller to the buyer. It is done
all the time, of course, often by express (the way bills generally say
"Vending Machine", which is often true, or use the euphemisms
"Toy" or "Game Apparatus") which suggests that there are few prob
lems do exist. If the shipment of a slot machine is "accidentally" dis
covered, as has happened, federal officers can impound it, and the
collector is in trouble with the FBI. The chances are slim that any
one would go to jail, although a misdemeanor charge could be ap
plied, but for sure, the machines would be confiscated, and probably
the most troublesome in this regard as the shipment contents must
be declared by the shipper, and upon arrival in the United States, by
both U.S. Customs and consequently the FBI is often alerted to the
lading. In recent years there have been numerous FBI "busts" of in
terstate shipped and imported slot machines, and in some cases truly
historical mechanisms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen
tury have been broken up to meet the letter of the law.
There is no question that such legal action is repressive when applied
to historical antique slot machine mechanisms that have long passed
their days of corruption. But the laws remain on the books, with in
valuable and uniquely American antique mechanisms being impound
ed broken up, and legally forced out of existence to meet the law
enforcement demands of a bygone age.
Some judges, recognizing these antique slot machines exactly for
what they are, have ruled in the favor of the collectors, and this ap
pears to be the trend.
But to be a slot machine collector you really
must want to collect the machines in spite of their problems, hoping
to stay out of trouble.
And if you do go to court, just hope you'll
get a judge like the one in San Diego, who, in 1969, ruled that a ma
chine confiscated from a collector was "well over the hill in the anti
que line. . .and is no more vicious in the home than an oil painting of
a slot machine."
com
.
m
:
have slots (for instance, don't
seu in a window), stay away
u them
from put
m
d
-
e
from imported slot machines
(they
are
virtually useless, anyway, due
de
a
oad and
l
c
r
n
to the odd coin
sizes
therefore
cannot
be played with any cur
.a
w the
Dow and
w
rent coinage);
in
event
you
have
purchased
a slot, ask the
w
://
seller to deliver
http it in person, or make arrangements to have you pick
The best rules to follow are to avoid openly broadcasting the fact you
it up in person at their place of business.
If pressed to ship, inform
the supplier that the shipment should be made "at seller's risk". On
this basis, if the machine is impounded, it's their loss, not yours.
© The International Arcade Museum
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