Coin Slot Magazine - #060 - 1980 - February [International Arcade Museum]
track at the topcoupled to six different coin chutes.
Jackson
There was also a token payout mechanism at the
addresses in 1910, so the sheet was from 1910 or
Boulevard".
Chicago changed its street
bottom, with the whole thing standing over three
1911.
feet high.
So what was it?
same sheet reproduced in "Pictorial History" in
from
guts.
the
You could hardly tell
It wasn't until
Burton started
Burton's sheet, with Gersh's copy of the
MARKETPLACE in March, 1976, also says "Built
reading his old Watling advertising flyers and stuff
under U.S. Patent No. 870,473.
that he found out what it was.
by the author shows it to be a patent issued to
A full page of a
A patent check
fold-out flyer showed it as the Watling DERBY
pioneer coin machine maker Gustav F. W. Schultze
RACING
of Oakland, California, on February 5, 1907 fol
MACHINE -- the picture shown here
came out of the flyer -- that looked for all the
lowing application on September 6, 1906.
world like a Mills
first Watling DERBY machine was probably made
ROULETTE or Caille PEER
LESS with horses instead of a roulette wheel.
In
between 1907 and 1909 with royalties to Schultze.
stantly, Burton knew he had to have the whole
Then the kickers.
machine, so he started asking around for a cabinet
size trade checks for
to copy.
DERBY BOARDWALK for "1
No takers.
Not only did no one have
So the
A number of old 5c and $1.00
DERBY RACES and the
Free Play" have
the cabinet for loan; no one had ever seen the
shown up in California, and an old photograph of
machine before.
the Watling factory in Chicago shows at least 8 to
But a lot of people in the active coin machine field
they?
had already heard about it!
chance to borrow the cabinet, then $2,000 just
12 of these machines in production. So where are
Some years before,
in the January 15, 1969 issue of THE MARKET
Burton started offering $1,000 for the
for a lead, then $10,00 for the cabinet, and now
PLACE, the machine had been illustrated and des
$20,000.
cribed by editor Bill Gersh. Gersh also had one of
already got a customer and at worst you can pick
So go out and find one! At best you've
the old flyers, with a Watling address of 727-729
up a good piece of change for just loaning out the
Jackson Boulevard, adding "Old No. 153-159 W.
cabinet.
BOOK REVIEW
By Bob Rosenberger
"Amusement Tokens of the
United States and
Canada" by Stephen P. Alpert and
Kenneth
E.
Steve Alpert and Ken Smith have been collecting
amusement tokens almost as long as anyone. Their
Smith, Published by The Mead Company, Long
respective amusement token collections are among
Beach, CA 1979, 136 pages $24.95
the best.
They have joined forces to produce this
new book.
Simply, it is THE definitive work on
An amusement token is one primarily intended to
amusement tokens.
be used in or dispensed from coin-operated ma
amusement tokens (e.g., Album's "California Trade
chines.
Tokens" and Kappan's "California Tokens"), none
These tokens were generally issued by the
machine's
Such
manufacturer
tokens
about the
or
its owner/operator.
came into existence around
same time
1890,
as the first commercially
successful coin-operated machines.
While many other works list
have made an effort to catalogue them as a sepa
rate entity.
Alpert's earlier works on amusement
tokens, published by the Token and Medal Society
were forerunners of the present book.
om
m.c
:
rom -museu
f
d
de cade
loa years
them more than n 10
ar Today, there is a
. ago.
w
o
w
w
small, but D
rapidly growing
cadre of loyal amuse
://w Many of these also collect
p
t
ment token enthusiasts.
t
h
Collecting amusement tokens is still a fairly new
The tokens are catalogued alphabetically within
activity; few, if any people specifically collected
the towns where they were issued.
To simplify
things, a Master Index alphabetically lists by name
all
the
tokens catalogued
location of each.
and gives the issuing
In the catalogue, the obverse
the machines in which the tokens were originally
and reverse of each token are described along with
used.
its diameter and metallic composition.
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http://www.arcade-museum.com/