Coin Slot

Coin Slot Magazine - #049 - 1979 - February [International Arcade Museum]
Serial No. Clearing House
Floor Machine Serials
By Dick Bueschel
If anything can be said to be virgin territory in the study of
slot machine serials it is the field of floor machines.
In fact, as
collectors we don't even know what to call these things yet.
I'm
talking about the automatic color wheel machines (that's what
they called them when they were being made and sold in the
1898-1917 period) such as the DEWEY, PUCK, OWL, JUDGE
and all the others.
And I mean all the others.
The diversity in
floor machines is so broad, and so many different models were
made -- I estimate that only half of the models made still survive
in collections with a single example or more -- that the total
tabulation will be breathtaking.
But in the meantime we're not
even taking the time to give them a class name, or much less try
and learn something about them through their serials.
Let's tackle that naming problem first. These machines seem to
identification.
In the midwest they are simply
have a regional
"floor" machines; out east they're often called "upright"; and in
California the names "highboy" or "cabinet machines" are often
used. As a midwesterner I prefer "floor" for the simple reason
that's what they are.
I have trouble with "upright" because that's
what the electrical and electronic replay and free play cabinet
machines made by Keeney, Games Inc., Auto-Bell, Bally and others
were called
in the fifties and sixties, and once collectors start
collecting these late model
name.
machines they'll retain the upright
I also have trouble with "highboy" as it sounds too much
like hightop, although "cabinet machine" doesn't give me much
trouble.
Maybe we should all vote on this, but to get the ball
rolling I'll just call them floor machines for now.
Actually,
it shouldn't be
com
.
m
:
u
rom most
use
the easiest to find and f the
survivable.
It appears that what
m
d
-
e
e ignore them. Starting now, they
d
really happens lo is ad
that people
a
rc to try and find out when each partic
wn ww if .a only
should D
be o tabulated,
//w made and sold.
: was
ular machine
http
Now the problem of serial numbers.
a problem at all as the floor machine serial numbers are among
Just how many of these machines were there? Well, Mills made
the most, of course, and apparently they made a lot.
© The International Arcade Museum
43
To quote
http://www.arcade-museum.com/