C.O.C.A. Times

THE STORY OF SLEEPING SAM
by Bill Howard
This story evokes some of my fondest collecting
memories involving family and friends that have passed
in time from my earliest days in this hobby to my recent
acquisition of this wonderful machine.
When I first started collecting, I met the Godfather,
Mike Gorski, and, on his advice, started to research the
top coin-op trade journals from 1900 until the advent
of World War II and to accumulate ads of what I con-
sidered to be the most interesting of machines. This ef-
fort took me to the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh on at
least four occasions with my father to examine every
issue of Automatic Age. Dad would help me copy the
ads I selected, and the memories of our times together
in that effort are something I will never forget.
As a result of trips to Pittsburgh for the Automtic
Age Journals, as well as trips to libraries in Cleveland
and San Francisco to pursue the Billboard and Coin
Machine Journal ads, I compiled a list of my fifty most
desired machines. I then sent that list to at least fifteen
dealers nationally, making it clear that I was an aggres-
sive buyer for them.
Over the years, I got responses as well as working
on my own so that, with time, I was able to purchase
or locate forty-seven of those fifty machines. I would
then cross off the applicable machine on my list as I
located it. As of a couple of months ago, only three had
not been crossed off the original fifty; one was Sleeping
Sam. I kept the ad, as well as my original list.
In early October 2010, I was eating dinner with the
Godfather right after he had received the catalogue for
the Mike Eckles Auction he was going to attend in Ann
Arbor, Michigan. As I looked at the Friday session that
featured items that you had to attend in person in order
to bid, my eyes almost fell out. I was staring at what
looked to be Smiling Sam himself. I told Mike that I
hoped I could get this machine at a reasonable price;
30