Classic Mode

Coin Slot

Issue: 1978 September 044

Page 11 Text:

Coin Slot Magazine - #044 - 1978 - September [International Arcade Museum]
one had the hand of Tom Watling or his son John Watling on its
cabinet top at one time or another as an implied symbolic blessing
or knighting.
These strong personalities are inseparable from the
surviving machines; somehow they go hand in hand in time.
In
short, Watling machines are distinctive and as collectors we like
things that are different.
It wasn't always that way, and the course of the Watling Bell
machine (The "Bell" is the three-reeler, with the machine class
name deriving from Charlie Fey's original LIBERTY BELL of
1905.) development is both ordinary and, perhaps to some, sur
prising.
As with all slot machine manufacturers, the serial num
bers tell the story.
To get in the Bell business Watling started out around 1911
by copying the Mills "Iron Case" OPERATORS BELL, claw feet
and all.
It's hard to say if they started out with Watling "WLB"
serials (a theoretical serial prefix meaning "Watling Liberty Bell"
that they just might have used) on their own as No. 1, or No. 100,
or No. 1001, or just jumped into the high numbers to look pro
ductive.
Only one or two of the early cast iron Watling OPERA
TORS BELL machines have survived and to date their serial num
bers are unknown.
By 1920 Watling was advertising the fact that
over forty thousand machines "of this type" had been sold-a
true statement if you count Mills Bell sales of the period which
had already gone well over fifty thousand-yet by that time
Watling Bell serials had not reached 20,000.
This alone suggests
that Watling started their own serial sequence to be issued in num
erical order as the other manufacturers did, although the absence
of early known serials makes this hard to confirm.
A lot of collector help is needed to fill out the Watling Bell
om
m.c
:
u
m
e
s critical area can be identified
accompanying this article,
m if u any
d fro d yet
-
e
e
d
it is the period
ca 1911 and 1926. We just don't have much
nloa between
ar first
.
w
o
w
information
about
the
thirty thousand Watling numbers, and
D
ww
/
/
:
p
we don't even
know
if
they
actually
made that many Bell machines.
htt
machine serial numbers as you can see from the scant starter list
Any numbers from this period can be very helpful, so if you know
them, send them in.
© The International Arcade Museum
http://www.arcade-museum.com/

Page 12 Text:

Coin Slot Magazine - #044 - 1978 - September [International Arcade Museum]
It wasn't until 1927 that Watling came out with a "moder
nized" Bell line. Watling called the line BLUE SEAL. For the next
nine years the entire developmental
showed up in its models.
history of slot machines
The first models were an Operator Bell
type called BLUE SEAL and a four-column gooseneck front ven
der that Watling called both BLUE SEAL and FRONT VENDER.
The latter had a simulated roll of mints on its front casting with
the copy "Blue Seal Confections" in the mint package.
When
jackpots came along in 1929 a small single jackpot was stuck on
the front with the BLUE SEAL name cast in block letters as the
machine name.
JACK POT.
duced in
Watling called the machine both BLUE SEAL and
Serials went over 40,000.
A side vender was intro
1929, called BLUE SEAL VENDER and JACK POT
VENDER, followed by a variety of vender and twin jackpot mo
dels in the early thirties.
It was the BLUE SEAL that started Watling out on its own
design path in Bell machines.
"Watling look":
T+ie machine set the style for the
short, squat and square.
Every Watling machine
that followed had the distinctive "sit" of the BLUE SEAL, and
no one else made machines that had the same look.
The TWIN
JACKPOT adaptations of the BLUE SEAL line and its offspring
brought the Watling machines out of the twenties and set the line
up for the more interesting machines of the thirties.
The soon-
to-come Watling ROL-A-TOP, DIAMOND, TREASURY and other
machines of the middle and late thirties were direct descendents
of the BLUE SEAL line.
As most collectors well know by now, the ROL-A-TOP isn't
a single machine; it's a full line.
Over the years well over thirty
different models were produced.
The line was first introduced
as the ROL-A-TOR to compete against the already established
escalator models by Mills, Jennings and Pace.
ROL-A-TOP started
com
.
m
:
u with the "O.K." feature,
gum vender, a four-column om
vender
use machines;
fr all mint
m
d
-
and gold award models
of
four
basic
eight models in
e
de
a
oad the
l
c
r
n
all.
In May,
1935,
name
was
changed
to
ROL-A-TOP.
It
.a
ow
w
D
w
remained the basic
://w Watling Bell design until the firm sold out in
http as it was, the ROL-A-TOP never seems to have
1951. Successful
out in a twin jackpot Bell, a two-column mint vender and ball
carried Watling over the magic 100,000 serial number mark passed
with ease by Mills and Jennings.
© The International Arcade Museum
10
http://www.arcade-museum.com/

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