Coin Slot Magazine - #055 - 1979 - September [International Arcade Museum]
THE COIN SLOT "RfOSf Wanted" List
By Dick Bueschel
Manufacturer:
The Western Novelty Company
Location:
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Machine Name:
ELK
Date Introduced:
1898
of old saloons as large rangy places with a balcony,
lots of tables and chairs with a grim poker game
in the corner, and the "Longest bar west of the
Pecos".
Baloney!
The reason the saloons we see
on film and videotape are so big is that the sets
are made large enough to accomodate the cameras.
Ninety-nine out
of a
hundred of the old time
saloons were hole in the wall locations stuck in
store front slots in the two-story brick buildings
that somehow still survive in some
numbers in
cities and small towns across the country, gener
ally on the "wrong side" of town.
aside
but,
This is an
incredibly, antique slot machine col
lectors that know what to look for have actually
found machines by spotting old saloon buildings
and conning or
breaking their way
in.
Some
times they're easy to find. Old breweries-including
Schlitz, Pabst and some of the bigger local brew
eries before prohibition-used to like to get their
name
on
a
saloon
building.
So they supplied
large cut stone or terra cotta logotypes, tile plug-
ins for brick walls, tinwork name panels and 3-
The Elk
Nickel machine, 8 slot, which pays from 10c
to $2.00 in nickels.
dimensional logos for front and roof trim, and all
sorts of other architectural pieces that could be
incorporated in the construction of a saloon build
m In some cities and towns you'll see rows of
co these
.
buildings, or blocks of them (For instance,
m
:
m
eu
o
s
r
u
f
if you're ever in Chicago, take a walk or a ride
m
ded very c heavy
de- early auto
down Belmont Avenue west of Clark Street). If
The enormously large
a
oa and
l
r
n
a
.
w
the buildings still stand you can quickly spot the
matic color wheel
machines
had their place. The
o
w
D
w
://w These big old monsters of
place was in saloons.
saloon trim. The brewery name is often chipped
http
We have also an Elk which has 5 slots and
pays from 10c to $1.00 in nickels.
the past were commanding as hell, and literally
took
over a
wall.
ings.
or rotted away, but the shape of the trim survives.
After growing up with the
movies and series after series of TV westerns in
our youth and early adulthood, most of us think
© The International Arcade Museum
Then there's the corner saloon of song and
legend.
If an old commercial building has a door
http://www.arcade-museum.com/