rtmccurdy wrote:Too start, I have a completely original unrestored 5-cent Horsehead Bonus that I can reference. (I have not owned 10 or 25-cent versions). I wonder if someone had a Bursting Cherry cabinet and put on the bonus castings which would explain the lack of drill plates, side vendor cover, and award card. I have owned a few unrestored Extraordinary slots that had the gold award mechanism inside w/o gold award mech parts or reel bundle.
Just to add to the possible combinations, I have an early 1934 Mills Extraordinary with custom patched original gold award reel strips that reference the World's Fair, but the gold award glass was painted over at some point, However, the mechanism was left in place, and the award card replaced with a standard one, leaving the gold award stops essentially the same as lemons.
But someone also went to the trouble of brazing washers over the gold award slots on the payout discs. Those also appear to have also been factory, or at least expertly, modified in conjunction with the special strip configuration, with patches soldered over some of the payout holes, and others specially cut out. The discs are marked S-G-x, but I'm not sure if that's what they ended up as with the modifications, or if that's what they were before the modifications . Some day I need to compare the patched reel strips to standard gold award ones and figure out exactly what's going on.
There are a couple of pictures of the strips here, from when I originally posted about the "find" - I thought I'd posted the strip configurations at one point, and if I find them I'll add them here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3799
Restored Mills 5c Extraordinary "barn find", long gone - now restoring 1934 5c Extraordinary Gold Award with original World's Fair reel strips
Restoring early Mills 5c Firebird (large coin view window)
About to take on a Mills 5c Vest Pocket