Coin Slot Magazine - #045 - 1978 - October [International Arcade Museum]
SeriaS No. Clearing House
Mills Bell Machine Serials
By Dick Bueschel
How many three-reel Bell slot machines have been produced over
the years? Many collectors and most "civilians" and police officers
are sure the total is in the multi-millions.
With anywhere from
three to nine million passenger cars produced annually for almost
half a century it seems reasonable enough to assume that a million
slot machines a year during the wide-open years of slot operating
is not a figure beyond reason.
The facts are surprising, and somewhat staggering.
Nowhere
near as many slot machines were made as most people believe
there were, and a lot less than even the most conservative estimates
would suggest. How do we know this, and what can confirm it?
The answers are the serial numbers on the machines produced by
The Mills Novelty Company of Chicago, the largest producer of
slot machines from the year it went into business in 1897 until
today, with the residual Mills Bell-O-Matic Division still making the
attractive coin grabbers.
.com
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:
u
use Bros, in the early years and
from only
producers combined,
with
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m
d
-
e
e
d Company
d in later years ever giving them a
O.D. Jennings
nloa And
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.
w
o
w
D
good competitive
w run for their money. A study of the serial num
://w firms bears this out, and also shows that Mills ran
bers of h
all
ttp three
It was always a well known fact in the coin machine industry
that Mills consistently made more chance machines than all other
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