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I see there is a is Sega 25c slot machine on craigslist. Can anyone tell me the story on these, as I know nothing about that brand name. Thanks!

Sega began life as Service Games of Nevada in the late Fifties, one of many businesses that made a living distributing, servicing, and "revamping" mainly Mills HiTops for the Nevada casinos and clubs. Soon they set up shop in Europe and Japan (cheaper production costs), producing clones of the HiTops for U.S. Armed Forces NCO and officers' clubs, and changed their name to Sega. They subsequently restyled the cases (producing the Star line, among others) and were initially successful, but eventually, as did all the mechanical slots, fell victim to Bally electro-mechs in the mid Sixties. They became Sega Enterprises and transitioned into arcade games, and eventually, computer games.
If you do a Forum 'search' you'll find lots of posts regarding Sega machines. They are not as popular as the Mills, Jennings, et al but there is a following for them!
Kindly post the craigsList link of the slot you are looking at so others can see exactly what machine we're talking about.
Thanks,
Nelson

Here is the picture of the Sega slot machine. I think it kind of looks like a mutant high top. He states it`s all there but it looks like it has a wood box for the cash box. He also says its been setting for a few years and is STIFF. He`s asking $900.00 for it, which I would think is a little high. I`m not interested in buying it, I was just curious is all. Thanks again! I really enjoy your guys feedback.

It sure is a very utilitarian looking machine. It gives me an impression of what an old Soviet slot might have looked like.

Randy

It's had an aristocrat mechanism shoehorned in it too.....

Good eye! I wouldn't recognize an Aristocrat mechanism...but I do know what a Mills mechanism looks like. That is not a Mills mechanism. As I understand it...when Mills went out of business, Sega bought the least used of yhe 3 sets of dies that were sold off. I don't know if they changed the cases for legal reasons or if they just wanted to be their own animal. I did read somewhere that MAD magazine tried to get Sega to remove Alfred E Neuman from the reel strips, as it was a copyright infringment. Sega refused and was not able to sell them in the US as a result. That is why they are not in US currency, although the 6p is easily convertwd to US dimes.
This is not carved in stone. this is what I remember reading somewhere, and can't remember the source...therefore SUSPECT. I am also "remembering", which is also suspect! I enjoy being corrected...it is one of the ways I learn!

The story is more complicated than that. Using the face of Alfred E. Newman in conjunction with the word "Mad" without permission certainly was a trademark infringement.

But if you look around, you'll be able to find information about how that face was actually in common use as a representation of a grinning idiot long before Mad magazine was created. I don't know if this had anything to do with Sega's misguided refusal to cease and desist.

While we are on the Alfred E. Newman kick...here is a print of a painting titled "The Lost Tooth" from 1903? that is said to be the origin of Mad Magazine's famous figurehead.

Madmoneystartypec.jpg[/attachment][attachment=0]7. Madmoneystartypec.jpg[/attachment Madmoneystartypeb.jpg Hi Guy's,
Just want to put the record straight relating to Sega, Sega started out in Hawaii in 1948 as Standard Games, it was sold to the Stern family in 1951, at that time Marty Bromley and his Father Irvin Bromberg along with Bruce Humpert started Service Games they later bought out Bruce Humpert and sold his stock to Dick Stewart and Ray Lemaire and sent them to Japan to start Service Games (Japan) who in turn started Service Games (Nevada) Inc, in 1954, they put Korwin Hailey as President and became the Mills Bell-O-Matic Company main distributor for Nevada.

Regarding Mad Money, they built the Mad Money models in several different cases including the The Winsor and Continental models for both the U.S Military bases and the Nevada Casino's along with the models for Germany and the U.K.

I have been close to the Bromley family for more than 50 years, I am writing a novel based on the life and times of Marty Bromley, it is called The Lone American,

Freddy Bailey