Tony was a great-grandson of Herbert Mills. By the time he got into the business, the family empire had dwindled to almost nothing compared to its glory days. We lived in Vegas for 3 years in late 70s and I stopped by several times to talk with Tony. It was kind of sad knowing that his family once dominated the slot industry. But he seemed positive and without any bitterness. In retrospect, I should have taken notes on some of the stories he had to tell.
I see you’re from TX; we lived in Abilene in early 80s. You may remember the tourist trap Old Abilene Town that was just to the east of Abilene; it closed down shortly before we moved there. A bunch of great arcade games and token slots came out of there. I was able to pick up a couple games, but it was pretty much picked over by the time I got to it. I also remember the First Monday market east of Dallas was good hunting grounds for coinop.
We settled down in southeast Virginia and have been too busy working for the past 15 years to do much with coinop until recently; now I’m supposed to be down-sizing the collections so we can move to a retirement home somewhere yet to be determined.
I’ve sold a few things on ebay; at rate I’m going, we’ll be ready to move in about 73 years.