News and Coming Events
Carters Auction
I hadn't planned on going to this sale, as there was nothing I particularly wanted, so I
thought my time would be better spent in Brighton, earning some money. As it turned
out, the weather was crap (Brighton would have been deserted), so I went to the auction
instead. It was good to see so many familiar faces; actually, I was quite surprised at just
how many slotties turned up.
There was some wonderful fairground stuff on offer, but the slots were frankly
disappointing. There were a few nice bandits, but these were dwarfed by the many
Aristocrats and Segas that ranged between extremely tatty to extremely average; the
same can be said of most of the other machines. One of the star lots was the Bolland
Pharaoh's Tomb, which looked very tidy on the outside. Unfortunately, on the morning
of sale, no one seemed to know where the keys were, so it was not possible to view
inside the machine. Bidding reached £5200, which seemed high, but I understand it
didn't actually sell - clearly an unrealistically high reserve.
Other auction news
Two very interesting machines sold at auction recently. Back in September, a Nelson
Lee fortune teller working model entitled The Magician was included in a fine art sale
in Dorking, it made £8400 plus premium. I thought I knew of most of the surviving Lee
models, in fact I have pictures of most of them, but I've never heard of this on,e. It just
shows, there are more machines out there ..... somewhere!
In October, a very rare BAC cast iron Nestles vending machine was offered in a
sale of railwayana, making £5000. These machines are always highly sought after, but
this one is of particular interest as it is a double vender; I know of only one other. It was
described as 'a superb example in original working condition with keys and a few old
chocolate bars.' Yuk!
Bonhams Knightsbridge Sale (18 th November)
There are a few slots in this sale, including: Mills floor standing Love Test; Bryans 3
Ball Folks on new penny play; c1901 Electricity is Life shocker by the Imperial Electric
Co. and an interesting Bussoz roulette wall machine, 'Miss Universe'. See Bonhams ad.
on page 25 for details.
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