Coin Slot
Issue: 1980 March 061 - Page 8
Coin Slot Magazine - #061 - 1980 - March [International Arcade Museum]
THE COIN SLOT "MOSt Wanted" List
By Dick Bueschel
Machine No. 12
Manufacturer:
McDonald Manufacturing Co.
Location:
Chicago, Illinois
machines came
Machine Name:
KING BEE
than ten of the big, old monsters in collections;
Date Introduced:
1898
there are hundreds of the others.
along.
There are probably less
The McDonald KING BEE is probably the classic
of them all because of its origin and its appearance.
The payout cup is practically at the floor while
the colored coin slots are at arm's length.
reached forward and down.
Players
The later machines
put their coin heads at the top and the payout
cups right in front so the money was easy to reach
and just as easy to play back into the machine.
Therefore, while
chine
when
trend.
KING
BEE was a popular ma
it came out, it didn't set a design
That's
the
surprising
part,
because the
KING BEE was designed by James W. McDonald,
a former business associate of Mortimer B. Mills,
the man that invented the Mills OWL.
The Mc
Donald machine was running by the end of the
summer of 1898 which means it came out a matter
of weeks after the Mills OWL.
It's as if everybody
was
working on
the same design idea at once.
One
particularly
interesting feature
is that the
KING BEE is a 7-way machine; there aren't many
of those.
It's also just about the biggest machine
you ever saw, standing six feet high, and that's
without a coin head at the top.
The McDonald KING BEE is one of the few early
floor
machines that have been fairly well illus
trated, therefore easily spotted in spite of the fact
that no known examples seem to exist.
It was
widely advertised, cataloged and described during
its days of glory, becoming the best known ma
The King Bee
Nickel machine, 7 slot, which pays from 10<
to $2.00 in nickels.
chine in a line of McDonald machines.
Some of
the others are fairly well known to collectors and
slot enthusiasts.
BANNER
Harrah's Museum has a McDonald
of 1900 and an example of the Mc
Donald
m DERBY is rumored to exist. But no KING
co BEE,
.
in spite of the fact that more were apparent
m
:
eu
s
rom interesting,
u
f
ly
sold
then any other McDonald machine. Mc
been discussed at some length. d They're
-m
e harder a
e
d
d
a
Donald
even redesigned the mechanism at the end
odd, hard to understand
and
to
repair.
They
lo
n extinct.
arc
.
w
of 1899 to bring it up to the state of the art,
o
are also apparently
They were so much
w
D
/ww practically nobody kept
:/ that
bringing it out as the 1900 KING BEE. By late
trouble in their day
p
t
t
h
them once the DEWEY, PUCK, DUPLEX, JUDGE,
1900 the price on the 1900 KING BEE had been
The virtues of the big, heavy, cast-iron first-gen
eration automatic color wheel floor machines have
ECLIPSE and other far more modern color wheel
© The International Arcade Museum
dropped to the point where it was a bargain among
http://www.arcade-museum.com/
THE COIN SLOT "MOSt Wanted" List
By Dick Bueschel
Machine No. 12
Manufacturer:
McDonald Manufacturing Co.
Location:
Chicago, Illinois
machines came
Machine Name:
KING BEE
than ten of the big, old monsters in collections;
Date Introduced:
1898
there are hundreds of the others.
along.
There are probably less
The McDonald KING BEE is probably the classic
of them all because of its origin and its appearance.
The payout cup is practically at the floor while
the colored coin slots are at arm's length.
reached forward and down.
Players
The later machines
put their coin heads at the top and the payout
cups right in front so the money was easy to reach
and just as easy to play back into the machine.
Therefore, while
chine
when
trend.
KING
BEE was a popular ma
it came out, it didn't set a design
That's
the
surprising
part,
because the
KING BEE was designed by James W. McDonald,
a former business associate of Mortimer B. Mills,
the man that invented the Mills OWL.
The Mc
Donald machine was running by the end of the
summer of 1898 which means it came out a matter
of weeks after the Mills OWL.
It's as if everybody
was
working on
the same design idea at once.
One
particularly
interesting feature
is that the
KING BEE is a 7-way machine; there aren't many
of those.
It's also just about the biggest machine
you ever saw, standing six feet high, and that's
without a coin head at the top.
The McDonald KING BEE is one of the few early
floor
machines that have been fairly well illus
trated, therefore easily spotted in spite of the fact
that no known examples seem to exist.
It was
widely advertised, cataloged and described during
its days of glory, becoming the best known ma
The King Bee
Nickel machine, 7 slot, which pays from 10<
to $2.00 in nickels.
chine in a line of McDonald machines.
Some of
the others are fairly well known to collectors and
slot enthusiasts.
BANNER
Harrah's Museum has a McDonald
of 1900 and an example of the Mc
Donald
m DERBY is rumored to exist. But no KING
co BEE,
.
in spite of the fact that more were apparent
m
:
eu
s
rom interesting,
u
f
ly
sold
then any other McDonald machine. Mc
been discussed at some length. d They're
-m
e harder a
e
d
d
a
Donald
even redesigned the mechanism at the end
odd, hard to understand
and
to
repair.
They
lo
n extinct.
arc
.
w
of 1899 to bring it up to the state of the art,
o
are also apparently
They were so much
w
D
/ww practically nobody kept
:/ that
bringing it out as the 1900 KING BEE. By late
trouble in their day
p
t
t
h
them once the DEWEY, PUCK, DUPLEX, JUDGE,
1900 the price on the 1900 KING BEE had been
The virtues of the big, heavy, cast-iron first-gen
eration automatic color wheel floor machines have
ECLIPSE and other far more modern color wheel
© The International Arcade Museum
dropped to the point where it was a bargain among
http://www.arcade-museum.com/
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).