rtmccurdy wrote:The promo picture looks familiar as it is like the chromed gold award w. side vendor in my collection (serial #385517). The vendor front (serial #361100) is lighter blue with a mirror covering the reserve, standard F.O.K. side plate, and a "foil" paper eagle.
Thanks for that. It's nice to see an example of the proper vender, as shown in the original Mills promo, and one of the vendor front models in what looks to be original condition.
The first Extraordinary that I had, a somewhat later model that originally was painted with gray wrinkle paint, had the upper jackpot covered with a factory cast plate, similar to that seen on some other models. The early Extraordinary that I have now, has the original double jackpot, though the gold award window had been painted over - fortunately with the mechanism left intact, other than a missing spring. The mechanism of course has gold award strips, but the gold awards were apparently expected to be treated like lemons, with a regular (CC-413?) award card dated 4-27-37 mounted in the case; the odd thing is that someone went to the trouble to braze washers over the gold award slots on the reel discs, even though the gold award lever was left in place!
I believe that the color of the eagle plate should match the blue of the case, as shown with the darker blue examples in the original promo pieces. Those early Mills promos show eagle plates with a frame around them, suggesting that what came first were eagles printed on silver metallic paper, and then the ones with paint in the etched design on brushed steel plates. After the early dark blue purplish paint came a lighter blue sometimes known as cadet blue (like the one in Fey's book, and some of the silkscreened repro plates like the one on the black 50c machine pictured earler), and that very pale blue, which would have been in keeping with a general trend towards more pastel or dusty colors. Then sometime around World War II they seem to have gone to the rather drab and industrial gray wrinkle paint look, and I think some examples of brown and green wrinkle paint as well. The machine I have now, like some others I've seen, then later had some red paint put on them to liven them up.
p.s. I have one of the pale blue on silvered paper plates in reasonable condition, if anyone is looking for one
Here's a fairly often reproduced photo of some Extraordinaires in what looks to be one of the drab 1940s paint schemes, probably wrinkle paint: