Coin Slot Magazine - #059 - 1980 - January [International Arcade Museum]
THE COIN SLOT "RfOSf Wanted" List
By Dick Bueschel
The history of coin operated chance machines is
until the end of
laced with an inventory of great ideas that came
coin machine ideas his final days.
and went and came back again. Sometimes it took
didn't die until
two or three times around for a game principle
until 1974.
to catch on.
longevity is that of Gus Hochriem; he lived until
Other times an idea made it the
first time, or never made it at all.
The "Most
1944, and he was thinking up
Tom Watling
1943, and Johnny Watling lived
One of the most surprising feats of
1956, still drawing new machine ideas to the end.
Wanted" list touches on examples of all of these,
with the final category probably the most inter
Hochriem's
esting because the machines are truly different,
success came at the 1933 Coin Machine Expo
and rare.
sition in Chicago at the Hotel Sherman between
Rare isn't really the word, for as far
last
serious
shot
at
coin
machine
as we know to date, they just don't exist at all,
February 10th and 23rd.
as only prototypes or exceedingly small production
Hochriem had made scales.
runs were ever made.
a new payout slot idea in his head.
The G. F. Hochriem and Company BOOSTER is
type
a marvelous example of this. The name Hochriem
horses that ran up in troughs on separate reels,
sounds familiar, doesn't it?
with a coin chute corresponding to each horse.
Throughout the 1920's
But he always had
By the begin
ning of 1932 he had developed an amazing Bell-
It should, because
Gustav F. Hochriem is one of the early pioneers
of slot machines.
Together with his partner, Joe
machine that had five colored cast metal
The device was payout machine and trade stimu
lator.
Pick a horse, or two or more, play the color
Paupa, Hochriem formed half of the significant
and pull the handle.
and successful Paupa And Hochriem Company in
you got your coin back, plus a trade token for
If the horse won a bell rang,
Chicago in the middle 1890's, with the firm mak
the amount played.
ing the first 5-way color-wheel payout machine.
token anyway, so "no blanks" and a chance to
If you lost, you got the trade
This multiple coin process feature was a landmark
get your money back.
development in payout machines, and led the way
chine says "FREE-one merchandise check with
The marquee on the ma
to the multiple countertop and floor machines to
each nickel play-your penny or nickel returned
follow in the late 1890'sand early 1900's. Before
if placed on winner-full valve for every nickel
the turn of the century both Paupa and Hochriem
deposited".
had become legendary figures in the coin machine
Gus Hochriem was ready by the February 1933
industry.
coin machine show, and had a display booth with
But once an incredibly clever feature becomes old
a bunch of the machines. According to the March
hat as new ideas pass it by, what is a legend sup
4, 1933 show recap issue of THE BILLBOARD,
posed to do?
"G. F. Hochriem, Chicago, well known in the build
Die?
Disappear? Or just sit quietly
on the sidelines as the world rushes by?
Slot
ing of scales . . .offered this year a trade stimu
machine enthusiasts-any action or mechanical an
lator in the baby vendor field, but showing horses
tique enthusiasts for that matter-know that new
racing up the stationary reels of the machine".
Somehow we expect
Hochriem presumably sold some, or at least took
their inventors to do the same thing as time and
orders although the machine was never advertised
machine ideas come and go.
om
m.c in the media. The illustration shown here came
:
u
m
e
out of the promotional folder he passed out at the
way. For instance, while the f names
d ro de of -m H. u S. s and
e
d
show. His basic idea was copied by every trade
later, Fred Mills, Tom
Ed Pace, 0. D.
loa Watling,
rca Caille
n and
a Art
.
w
stimulator maker in the business using plain reels,
Jennings, Adolph
later
and others
o
w
D
w
went on and on from
the Buckley HORSES being a good example. But
://w the late 1890's through the
p
t
t
h and even fifties, most collectors what happened to the Hochriem BOOSTER pro
thirties, forties
tide washes them out.
But it doesn't happen that
are quite surprised and even shocked to hear that
totypes, or the machines he presumably built for
some of the very early coin machine pioneers lived
his loyal customers?
well into the present era.
seen one.
Charlie Fey didn't die
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No collector I know has ever
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