Re: Experts chime in - Restoring a Little Duke
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 12:55 pm
Rockola sold brand new machines from other manufacturers, bought used machines, took machines in on trade and reconditioned them and sold them. In addition to selling jackpot conversion fronts. See the 1933 flyer below. This was very common back then. Pace, Watling, Mills and Jennings either has agreements with the other companies or they didn't care, just sell the stuff. If you look in any of the old Brunswick catalogues, you will see Caille uprights offered for sale with no mention of Caille in the description. Albert Pick was a jobber that sold saloon and gambling items, he sold Mills and Caille uprights and put his mental tag on the front. Numerous machines exist with the Albert Pick metal plate on them. I have had two Mills Silent FOK's that were Rockola. They had the Rockola decals and the tin Rockola reel strips. My guess is they put the reel strips on the reconditioned machines and not on the brand new ones but I don't know. I would guess they would put their decals on every machine they sold, new or used.
Watlingboy
Watlingboy