Coin Slot Magazine - #065 - 1980 - July [International Arcade Museum]
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Caille Bros, was all but out of the ball game. They also
made outboard motors, but the depression stopped those
sales. Adolph Caille, the surving Caille brother (his
cofounding brother Art Caille had died in 1917), sold out
and The Caille Bros. Co. continued under new manage
ment. Caille Bell machines and outboard motors were still
being made, but not by Cailles'.
When Adolph Caille sold out he and his son Arthur J.
Caille (named Art after his uncle) were tied to a non-
competitive contract that didn't allow them to go back in
the slot machine or outboard motor business under the
Caille name. But clever old Adolph had another machine
Even the marvelous A.C Novelty MULTI-BELL had a side
vender model. While over two examples have been reported
up his sleeve and he wanted desperately to go back to the
slots of his dreams. So he created, engineered and
produced
the
over-engineered,
super-complicated
MULTI-BELL, and threw all his remaining money into the
formation of the A.C. Novelty Company in Detroit. "A.C."
stood for either "Adolph Caille" or "Art Caille"—that's the
only way they could bring back The Caille name—as they
both had major roles in the firm; father Adolph as the
designer and production manager and son Art as the
director of marketing and sales.
The features of the machine are fairly well known. The
three reels don't work like a Bell machine as they are win-
or-lose with changing odds. The fantastic thing about the
machine is that it has a 7-way coin head. In any event, just
over the years they have yet to show up in collections.
as it entered the market in 1936 old Adolph Caille died,
Machine No. 23
Manufacturer: A.C. Novelty Company
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Machine Name: MULTI-BELL VENDER
Date Introduced: January 1938
Few Bell machines from the late 1930s have as much
mystery and mystique about them as the A.C. Novelty
Company MULTI-BELL. There are a considerable number
of these machines around, and it wasn't until the late 1970s
that it was found out why this was the case. That's part of
the mystique.
A brief historical recap is in order. The well-known The
Caille Bros. Co. of Detroit was the second largest (after the
Mills Novelty Company) maker of slot machines in the
leaving the fortunes of the machine to his son Art. Sales
poked along in 1937 and 1938, and floundered. By 1939 the
MULTI-BELL was a failure and development stopped.
The straight-play models of the MULTI-BELL aren't
common, but they are around. It's the models developed in
desperation in 1937 and 1938 that haven't shown up yet,
specifically the side vender as illustrated here from its
original 1938 promotional sheet. The side vender is
unique, and so is its play-and-pay-on-checks (i.e. trade
tokens)-only feature. Why hasn't this machine been
found? Possibly because it might have been export only.
When it was announced in the late summer of 1937 the
press release said: "A.C. Novelty Company reports that
export trade is accounting for a considerable part of the
activity at their offices right now. In most foreign countries
was a time when floor and arcade machines were the
... a vender type of machine using mints is preferred to the
straight Bell Model. A new A.C. machine is being designed
to meet this need, but will not beonthemarketforabout 60
largest sellers. After 1919 the firm slipped in standing, with
Mills running way ahead followed by O.D. Jennings And
days. The real live immediate prospects for business are in
France and some in Belgium."
country between the early 1900s and World War I. That
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as a result slipped into fourth place. By the beginning of
the 1930s and the entry of Pace, Bally and others—with the
Exhibit Supply Company and Buckley Manufacturing
Company taking over the arcade machine business—
© The International Arcade Museum
JULY, 1980
So maybe these machines are in Europe, it anywhere.
Examples have been reported in Canada but they haven't
shown up. But that's only one of the missing variants.
There's another and it's even more interesting. Back to the
A.C. Novelty press release of August 1937: "The English
Territory demands a special type of game which may be
skill controlled with buttons to stop the wheels at the
Continued on page 24
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