C.O.C.A. Times

It happens to al I of us.
You see something and think
to yourself, "Hey!
That
thing is really under-priced.
I'll buy it and even if I don't
keep it, I'll make a killing on
the other side when I sell it."
Sound familiar? Of course it
does. If you've been collect-
ing coin-op for any length of
time, today's tale will strike a
responsive chord.
As with most of my an-
ticipated Ebay transactions,
I wrote to the sellers and
asked a question or two,
mostly to get a feel for their
honesty and integrity. I was
also curious to know how the
machine operated since the
interior picture of the ma-
chine, Photo "B," although
clear photographically was
vague operationally in my
non-mechanical mind .
I
basically described how I
thought it should work: coin
drops - makes circuit to
light bulb and shakes dice
- drops down into base and
hits/rings bell - and asked if
this was correct. The seller
responded and told me I was
right. The response also an-
swered another intuition of
mine; the seller was French-
I was cruising Ebay
when I came across the item
in Photo "A" in the toy sec-
tion . The verbal description
was fairly straight-forward
if not a little grammatically
challenged. It said: "WOW
LOOK A ANTIQUE TOY
DICE MACHINE 1 CENT.
MAPLE WOOD, HAND
MADE, 1930-1950, THE
MACHINE IS FUNCTION-
NAL. BATTERY D. THE
WOOD HAVE A
VERY BEAUTI-
FUL PATINA,
MEASURE
IS 9
LONG
X 9 INCHES
LARGE X 14
INCHES LARG-
ES.
EXCEL-
LENT TO ADD
TO YOUR COL-
LECTION OR
DECORATION.
POSSIBLE TO
COMBINED
A
SHIPPING
WITH OTHER
ITEMS ADD $2.50. THANK YOU FOR LOOKING
AND BIDDING. HAPPY NEW YEARS ALL £BAY-
ERS."
Canadian with English as a
second language and actu-
ally had no idea how the
machine really worked.
All in all, an ideal
situation. The seller does
not know what they have
which is why they listed it
in "toys" rather than "ar-
cade" or "gambling." They
do not know how it works
and they started the auction
at $39.99, which I considered a steal. These little dicers
are well liked and the fact that it was home-made did
not detract from its attractiveness as far as I was con-
cerned. Even if the little machine did not work proper-
ly as configured, what's the big deal? This is just basic
electrical circuitry, folks. I fly high-tech airplanes for
heaven's sake; how tough could it be?
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