by automaticpleasures » Sun Sep 20, 2015 4:56 am
Hi there saw this post and thought I’d add my bit- Freddie’s version is a little bit garbled but I’ll let others contribute their knowledge in terms of detail. Key thing is that there were 3 different machines: The Allies Flags, The Conquerors Flags, and The Victors Flags which came out during and shortly after WW1 by different makers including Thompson in Birmingham- another manufacturing company for instance was based in Scotland.
They are all very rare and historical pieces, and great fun to play. One went for some $3500 dollars in 2006- so you have done well. Why Americans should shun them I do not understand since they were played in droves by the thousands of Yankees who came over the pond to fight in WWI.
They are certainly part of US history as well.
As far as coin machines are concerned there appears to be chauvinism on the part of our American cousins and they seem to have swallowed hook line and sinker the advertising PR bullshit of the US manufacturing companies of the 1930’s-50’s who readily fabricated history to suit themselves which is currently believed as reality.
On prime example is Thomas Adams who in “1888, invented and marketed the first American gum vending machine”. This is just one of many examples that will hopefully be exposed in my forthcoming work.
Have any of you heard of the coin operated amusement arcade functioning in the 1860’s in the UK attracting so many people that the police had to be called to control the crowds? I bet not.
Many of the received US ‘inventions’, inventors, and early investors were in fact British.
Up until the First World War the US lagged behind the UK and Europe in terms of the adoption and dispersal of the new technology- This is a constant theme of the American press of the time- why oh why is America so slow on the uptake?
For many Americans at the time the only way to get ahead was to come to live in Europe and to patent and sell their ideas there- so there are a number of inventors/inventions which have been classified as British/ Foreign and therefore largely ignored by Americans. A glaring example is Charles Adams Randall, who was in fact a New Yorker who took out the first Juke box patent a year before Louis Glass in the US- which on closer inspection contrary to current knowledge does appear to have been manufactured/ marketed in Europe- leading ultimately to the company which produced the early Beatles records!!. He has largely been ignored in the US presumably because the assumption was that he was British and therefore not important.
The more astute of the American collectors have long been aware of this- that early British coin machine history is in fact early American coin machine history- the two cannot be separated. Whilst the crowd has been chasing each other for relatively commonplace stuff, the discerning few have cleverly gone off on their own and amassed wonderful collections of some very rare, historic, and desirable pieces
So don’t look down on British stuff- it’s your nation’s history as well!! And there’s still a lot out there waiting to be found.
Nic Costa
Author: Automatic Pleasures, More Automatic Pleasures, The Penny Machine Picture Book