C inman of
e Mont
MAURICE TERRY
This month's Coinman, Maurice Terry, it seems
was born in the coin-operated amusement business.
His father got into the business during World War
II, and Maurice just grew up in it. At about eight or
nine years old he had already acquired his first
pinbaU machine. He was helping his father in his
spare time and after schoo~ and a little later on
acquired two one-baU games. He says these two
games made him aU the spending money he needed
when he was younger. His uncle was also in the
one-ball business, and Maurice picked up quite a
few things from him, especiaUy it seems on the
service end. By watching his uncle repair his
one-balls, Maurice learned to fix his own. His
strong service background has helped him down
through the present time because quite often he
does, what he terms, "free-lancing, " service work
for hire for other operators.
At 19 he went into bingo professionaUy and
started operating gambling equipment. But he tired
finaUy of the "legal today, iUegal tomorrow" status
of the business and in 1957 started to change his
route. He invested in coin-operated amusement
games and a little bit of music. His forte, though,
was games. His father'S route was mainly music,
but stiU the two of them found themselves in
10
competition, though Maurice is quick to add that
neither of them ever beat the other out of a
location.
Presently his operation is about 1,000 machines,
but about 180 of those are cigarette machines, and
he says that he has always got about 100 pieces in
his warehouse so that he can keep up his resale
business to homes. His operation caters quite
strongly to the home market, as far as seUing used
amusement machines. On the coin-operated side, he
operates about 225 jukeboxes, with pinbaU
machines being his next biggest category of
machines. His pool table operation is quite big,
ranking third in total number of pieces in his
operation, and video games are fourth with him.
His wife's name is Norma Sue, and they have five
children - Susan, 20; Melody, 18; Mark, 15; Tracy,
12; and Corlotta, 3. Besides his family and his
business, Maurice's interests include hunting and
fishing.
In February his business wiU be expanding into
new quarters, as Maurice wiU be going into the
distributing business as weU. His new building wiU
be 37,000 square feet and wiU house his three
companies - Texas Music, Acme Cigarettes, and
Play More Games.
December, 19n, PLAYMETER