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
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