My Mills Dice arrived yesterday via freight truck. The machine works beautifully-- or at least it does now, after I dealt with several mechanical issues which no doubt arose from the freight company interpreting the words "THIS END UP" and "HANDLE WITH CARE" to mean "PUSH OVER SIDEWAYS AND SHAKE VIGOROUSLY." Despite a sideways impact which bent the handle about 1/4" inward and quarters lodged everywhere they don't belong-- plus a rod to the point#4 pocket having come off and the dice carousel having become misaligned to the playfield, causing dice to jam during the cycle-- all were easy fixes to problems which clearly resulted from a machine that had merely been severely jostled rather than smashed to pieces a la UPS&FedEx. I was very relieved. Now I have some questions for people who know about these things:
1) The color scheme isn't what I'm used to seeing. Instead of dark brown on the alligator-texture, there is a sort of metallic copper color. The coin entries and lettering are in a slightly greenish yellow color ("Harvest Gold"?). Close examination reveals fine craquelure on all of these painted surfaces, indicating their advanced age. Were any original Dice finished in this scheme, or is this a 50+ year old repaint job?
2) The dice themselves also appear very old, worn and discolored. They are ivory-colored dice, and they work fine in play (at least since I lined-up the playfield); didn't I read somewhere that all of the original dice were red, and/or that those are the only kind that work, or something like that--?
3) There is no anti-tilt device and I can find no attachment point where one could have ever been located. Is it possible there never was one on this machine, or did it just get pitched?
4) The story goes that the Dice was a big flop when introduced, because they malfunctioned all over the place, but later Gordon Mills bought up the rejected machines on the cheap and worked some kind of magic on them to make them reliable. What did GM fix, exactly? I called and pestered a famous Dice restoration expert about this, and he told me that it was the bottom payout wheel/plate that was replaced with something that worked better; I don't understand how that relatively simple part could be such a bugbear amid this maze of rods and levers. Can anyone tell me more about what Gordon Mills fixed, exactly? The expert also informed me that the "new and improved" Mills Dice machines could be recognized by having a square denom tag (such as mine) whereas the factory first-issue machines have/had round tags.
5) Where would I expect to find a serial number on this beast?
Any information on these Mills Dice machines and their history is most welcome.