by marsonion » Fri Mar 31, 2017 2:00 pm
I suspect the general shorting of higher payouts when using contemporary coinage in these old machines is more typical than exceptional. For my dime machines, wherever there is a range of payout on the award card, the payout will invariably be on the bottom end of the range for oranges and often short one dime below range on the plums and higher; as you would expect, a stack of mercury dimes is always a smidge shorter than any stack of the same number of FDRs minted after 1965, and the difference naturally adds up more and more the higher the number of coins in the stack. Today I found that my Mills Dice consistently pays out only 15 of the 16 quarters due on an Eleven win; unless someone can convince me otherwise, I attribute this to a similar difference in thickness between the honest "junk-silver" quarters of the 1930s and the composite/clad 25c pieces in circulation today.