Spotlight
Bryan's Payrarnid
As a continuation to last month's 'The History of the Wall Machine', this time in
Spotlight, I'm featuring the greatest catcher of all time, and everyone's favourite .
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In the early years of his business, William Bryan had demonstrated an extraordinary
talent for designing and manufacturing machines which can only be described as special;
in all respects, Bryan' s machines ' were so different'. It was in 1934 that William Bryan
introduced his greatest machine ever; a game which he would never better or even equal,
and many would say, neither did anyone else: Payramid. These incredible machines
were manufactured during five decades, and the numbers produced (over a thousand)
were only surpassed by Bryan' s two versions of the Clock combined, and possibly
Elevenses. They were still actively marketed in the 1970s, and although no figures are
available, it is known that they were still manufactured to order in the 1980s, by which
time they had become collectors' items.
As catchers go (and indeed, any other mechanical slot machine), Pay ramid is an
extremely complex machine; both in i(s mechanism, and game play. However, to the
casual observer or even first time player, it is merely a multi ball, multi payout machine.
There are many collectors out there who revere the machine without fully understanding
just how complex it is, and some who don ' t even care .. .. .. it's just a great game to play!
So what is it exactly that makes this such a special machine? Well, let's start by looking
at the game cycle. On insertion of a coin, eight balls are released ready for play. The
player uses a crank handle to raise the balls to the top of the playfield, one by one. As
each ball falls from the top of the playfield, the player turns a knob to control a pair of
fingers (the catching medium) in the centre of the playfield, endeavouring to catch the
balls between them . All successfully caught balls are held in a central stack, and the fifth
ball caught pays out two coins. As the player has eight balls to play, if he catches the
first five , he ' ll still have three left. Each successive ball caught after the fifth pays a
further two coins, and if he is lucky enough to catch all eight, the last ball, in addition to
paying two coins, will also release the jackpot. Having released the jackpot, the last bal l
is then recycled, so in theory, if the player catches this ball every time it is played, the
game will never end (although in practice, there's a greater chance of winning the
National Lottery .. .. .. without a lottery ticket)!
This, in itself, is a brilliant game; as frustrating as it is rewarding, and perversely
rewarding in it 's frustration. It is easy to understand why it was so popular for so long,
and even now it is one of the most popular machines that I operate at Brighton. But for
many collectors, the appeal of this machine goes far beyond the game. There must surely
be no other purely mechanical slot machine that commands the same appreciation for
sheer mechanical ingenuity that many collectors have for Payramid. It is not practical to
explain the entire mechanism here, there's just too much of it! But I have plans for a
series of articles, sometime in the future, to give a step by step explanation of exactly
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