C.O.C.A. Times

had devised a method of opening the shutters without push-
ing a button. The penny itself dropped the shutter. To view
the rest of the dealer's cards push th e button on the upper
left. Sounds complicated doesn' t it? It is and this probably
led to the scarce supply of survivors. Good Luck fi nding
one. Mills also may have been chased off by threats of code
violations to th e NRA. Or maybe it was just a little ahead of
its time as Mills would return to this style of cabinet in 1938
wi th a trio of machines called Kounter King (with shutters),
Fruit K ing and Wi ld Deuces only now the cabinets had wood
sides and bottoms with an aluminum fro nt.
In 1936 Pierce came back with another version of its short
lived "Hit Me". This time it was called Army 21 Game. The
all aluminum cabinet still had 5 ree ls and 3 shutters only now
the symbols were numbers and not cards. Only 2 ree ls were
available for "Hits." The center shutter revea led the dealers
hand along with the amount of money won in "Points."
This is also a hard machine to find but not because of the
NRA. On May 27, 1935 the NRA was found to be unconsti-
tutional by a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Governor Huey Long of Louisiana said, "I raise my hand in
reverence to the Supreme Court that saved this nation from
fascism." It's doubtful that patent infringement was an issue
either as this was surely a gambling device. Perhaps this
game died an early death due to another issue altogether. ..
style. America and the coin machine industry were embrac-
ing a new look of sleek, smaller, more modern games.
In 193 5 Daval Mfg. Co. introduced Reel "21." This
$23 .75 when new game was one of the many humpback or
round top machines they would produce during the late 30's.
Modern painted curved cabinets replaced the old boxy shiny
aluminum slab sided games. Reel "2 1" uses the same num-
ber symbols as the Army 21Game and the same shutter sys-
tem. The large population of avai lable games makes it one
of the most successful Blackjack games ever.
Groetchen would stay in style in 1936 by revamping their
successful art deco 2 1 vender and calling it "21 Twenty
One". Number symbols would replace the old card symbols
and the cabinet got a makeover with a curved top. The shut-
ters moved from the right to the left side and now the first
window showed the hand to beat and winning odds. There
are more of these machines avai lable than the old style. This
is a solid and very well made game.
Western Products made the first Baby Blackjack machine
named Draw 21 in 193 7. This half pint was small enough to
find a place on any store counter or bar. It would be among
the first of many smaller modern designed stimulators. It
used the same format as the Garden City Army 21 Game and
some of them were private labeled by Western for Garden
City. This identical twin was named Baby Jack. Western
used the same cabinet for their cigarette game Match-Em and
also private labeled it for Garden City with a Prince name-
plate. Weak pot metal mechanism parts may have helped to
5 contribute to the lack of surviving examples.