Marketplace

MARKETPLACE
NEWSLETTER
PAGE 6, AUGUST 30, 1975
The
Wondrous
Coin
Machine
Many yea.rs ago we made a speech with the theme, "No machine is made like a coin
ma.chine." We explained, "If a key goes bad on a typewriter, the typist will favor
that key." That doesn't happen with a coin machine. We also pointed out that any
machine over which the general public was given even partial control would soon be
out of order.
"Just think", we stated, "what would happen to the sturdiest cash registers if
the public were allowed to ring up their own sales." Yet, as we said, regardless
of all the attempts at slugging, kicking, pushing, pounding, even lifting and drop-
ping of various types of coin operated machines, they go right on working just as
they were intended to.
Machines with cbangemakers, dollar bill acceptors, much other delicate mechanism,
continuously handled by the public, from small, mischievous youngsters to burly,
short tempered adults, continue operating year after year with actually an absolute
minimum of mechanical problems.
Sometimes, in anger, desperation or frustration at not being capable of reaching
an impressive score on a game, people have been known to knock or kick a machine so
that it falls over on the floor. Aside from the possibility that some glass may be
broken, once righted, the machine goes right on operating as if nothing so violent
had ever occurred.
Machines caught in flood waters, once cleaned and the muck removed, are back on
locations working as usual. There is no machine made, constantly handled by the pub-
lic, no machine for entertainment or merchandising purposes, that stands up as well
as a coin operated ma.chine.
The public doesn't treat a coin machine like it does an auto or radio or TV re-
ceiver or any appliance made. Let's face it, from personal weighing scales to mer-
chandise venders to slot machines, the public is out to beat a coin operated mach-
ine. A thousand and more stories can be told of such attempts by the public.
•
....
Yet, here we are, for less than a hundred years, offering coin operated machines
to the public for their complete usage, and still in business. Still growing. Pre-
senting more sophisticated electronic solid state machines to the public who are
unacquainted with the miles of wiring, with the delicate, marvelous units contained
in those machines and, somehow, the machines outlast the public and outlive the op-
erators regardless of all abuse, of all weather conditions and of all attempts to
curtail their operation.
What a truly wondrous thing is the coin machine!