Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

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Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby gamblingman » Fri Jul 12, 2013 11:29 am

I'm not a big fan of the Caille machines which use the hydraulic pump, but I thought I would throw these pics up there of a restoration I did a few years back. Of all places, I found this in an antique store in Salt Lake City. It was a basket case, and the mech came in pieces in a cardboard box. I have a pic of when it was found, and a couple after I was done, minus the award card on top...it was added later. It looks a lot like the Cadet model, but with a lot more chrome. I was told it was a "Play-Boy" model, which featured "no lemon" strips. I really haven't researched it, and I have found a lot of pics that are close, but I've never found a pic of a machine exactly the same. So if anyone has any info to add, please let me know. There is a brass plate on the side with the number 113437
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Restored 2.jpg
Restored 2
Restored 1.jpg
Restored1
When I found it.jpg
When Found
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby marsonion » Fri Jul 12, 2013 3:23 pm

I'm posting pictures, also before-and-after, of a no-lemon Knockout(?) Play-Boy(?) which came out of a fishing/hunting lodge in the Thousand Lakes area of Minnesota. When I got it last year, the damn thing had the original red color scheme painted-over with a house brush in blue, apparently in order to match a blue Mills High Top handle somebody had put onto the thing (the seller told me the son of the original owners "liked to tinker, not always in a good way.") The original red was still underneath; the pump had drained during shipment and the fluid partially stripped the paint away, giving me a head start on the restoration. I had plenty of work to do reversing some of the bailing-wire "tinkering" which had been done to the machine, but now it runs wonderfully and is one of my favorite playing machines. I found the right handle for it, but I've still got some carpentry to do in order to fill the three bore-holes drilled into the side for the Mills handle grafting job (Sheesh!). I've got a plastic can lid on there temporarily to cover the ugly. Anybody want to buy an extra Mills club handle--?

A Caille ad reproduced by Bueschel in LCABFG, and his sidebar text on page 157, would lead me to believe this was a no-lemon Knockout. I found no remnant of any "Play-Boy No [lemon]'s" sticker in the reel window... but that doesn't mean there never was one.

The funny dashboard-like arrangement on your top casting is something I've seen before. I'll try to hunt down a picture or two for you, but besides telling you it's probably a very late production item (likely 1939), I have no documentation to indicate what they might have called this style of machine, if anyone bothered to give these monsters any name at all. It looks very odd to me, that they would've chopped up the award card into two pieces to put into the butterfly-like frame at the top, and then stuck the denomination tag where the award card otherwise belongs... makes me wonder if the floor crews might've started making their own styling&design efforts while Caille Bros. management was deep-sixing the slot machine division along with their jobs.


gamblingman wrote:I'm not a big fan of the Caille machines which use the hydraulic pump, but I thought I would throw these pics up there of a restoration I did a few years back. Of all places, I found this in an antique store in Salt Lake City. It was a basket case, and the mech came in pieces in a cardboard box. I have a pic of when it was found, and a couple after I was done, minus the award card on top...it was added later. It looks a lot like the Cadet model, but with a lot more chrome. I was told it was a "Play-Boy" model, which featured "no lemon" strips. I really haven't researched it, and I have found a lot of pics that are close, but I've never found a pic of a machine exactly the same. So if anyone has any info to add, please let me know. There is a brass plate on the side with the number 113437
Attachments
almostdone.jpg
KOdisp.JPG
$(KGrHqVHJCME9uO+5H+CBPofL(sys!~~60_57.jpg
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby marsonion » Fri Jul 12, 2013 3:39 pm

Here are some pictures of a late-model Caille machine (the owner was sure it was a Play-Boy) with some sort of stingray-like plate of trim at the top surrounding the denomination tag-- really, I have no idea why they would've done something like this. Also, a I'm posting a copy of the Knockout model ad from Bueschel's "Lemons, Cherries..." etc.
Attachments
$T2eC16d,!)0E9s37HlURBRMjzvHu+g~~60_57.jpg
$T2eC16N,!ygE9s7HHrCRBRMj)iu3kw~~60_57.jpg
$(KGrHqJ,!k4FE)-kPG5NBRMj0Euw3!~~60_57.jpg
knockoutADxt.jpg
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby gamblingman » Fri Jul 12, 2013 8:53 pm

Wow, thanks for posting the pics. I remember talking to someone in the industry from California, who told me Caille turned out a lot of modified machines there at the end.....probably to get rid of parts and pieces they had lying around. That pic of the one with the "Stingray Trim" is really intriguing. I like Chrome....but I'm with you in that I can't believe they would do something like that. Seems like I am getting a history lesson every time I log on to the computer....thanks!
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby marsonion » Mon Jul 15, 2013 12:40 pm

Welcome! Now here's another from my WTF file: this picture was sent to me by a longtime vintage slot dealer who was asking me WTF it was, as if I'd know. All I could tell him is it resembles a Knockout from the neck down-- that is, if you use your X-ray Spex to see through the gawd-awful red and blue mask-and-spray job somebody perpetrated. From the neck up, it looks like some sort of huge coin detection/rejection arrangement was added on (along with chopped-up award cards from other models) but the guy told me it couldn't be a postmanufacture mod because the owner had two machines that were built like this. Sorry, this is all the information I have. There appear to have been somebody's written notes and arrows drawn onto the picture that are now cropped off, including one indicating what appears to be a coin release/return button, but this is as much of the picture as I received.

So, what is that big, ugly mess perched up on top and "decorated" with that stupid-looking "stingray" trim piece? I vaguely remember seeing pictures somewhere of a Mills or Jennings machine with some sort of towering coin entry gizmo standing on the top casting, but I don't recall what it was all about. Anyone know what I'm talking about--? Maybe I was dreaming.

Generally, I'm guessing that the later styling changes to the Caille's top casting such as appear on your machine were intended to "morph" the design in the "High Top" direction, though the first actual High Tops didn't appear until almost ten years later. Several models of slots by various manufacturers were already moving away from the gooseneck/halftop style and toward a more simplified and integrated, "modernized" look around the coin entry area by the late '30s, so I think that might've been an industrial design trend in the air at the time. it's just too bad some of these later model Caille examples are so butt-ugly.


gamblingman wrote:Wow, thanks for posting the pics. I remember talking to someone in the industry from California, who told me Caille turned out a lot of modified machines there at the end.....probably to get rid of parts and pieces they had lying around. That pic of the one with the "Stingray Trim" is really intriguing. I like Chrome....but I'm with you in that I can't believe they would do something like that. Seems like I am getting a history lesson every time I log on to the computer....thanks!
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby SLOT DYNASTY » Mon Jul 15, 2013 3:17 pm

You are correct about the WTF file. I have never seen this configuration, with a now even higher top section, with the 'stingray' trim piece.
Also notice that the award card is placed over the famous Caille coin escalator window. What gives with that? This is what makes our machine hobby
so damn interesting at times. Of all the machine history that I have researched over the years, I was never that interested in the later Caille "Uglies",
therefore never persued the history. Dick Bueschel did do some research on them, but not as extensive as all other mfrs. models. My guess here, is
that we have another one of those owner-operator configurations that went nowhere. It would be very interesting to see this machine in person, and
get into the bowels of it, to see what they did. Where was this machine supposedly located?
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby andydotp » Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:06 am

I figure marsonion's nailed it. =D>
Perhaps akin to what National (?) produced to conceal elaborate slug detectors on other brands - like the very tall-headed Jennings & Pace examples (which are dead-set real).
It certainly fits the time period but I'll happily stand corrected - on marsonion's behalf :oops: :oops:
Always keen to learn from here, thx.
(answers on the back of a fifty BTW)
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby marsonion » Tue Jul 16, 2013 3:21 pm

Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)
by SLOT DYNASTY » Mon Jul 15, 2013 2:17 pm

You are correct about the WTF file. I have never seen this configuration, with a now even higher top section, with the 'stingray' trim piece.
Also notice that the award card is placed over the famous Caille coin escalator window. What gives with that? This is what makes our machine hobby
so damn interesting at times. Of all the machine history that I have researched over the years, I was never that interested in the later Caille "Uglies",
therefore never persued the history. Dick Bueschel did do some research on them, but not as extensive as all other mfrs. models. My guess here, is
that we have another one of those owner-operator configurations that went nowhere. It would be very interesting to see this machine in person, and
get into the bowels of it, to see what they did. Where was this machine supposedly located?


No idea where the owner/machine is located. All I know about the tall-and-ugly Caille machine is third-hand, i.e. the owner sent a picture to- and asked somebody who in turn asked me about it, providing me with what looks like a redacted version of the picture. I thought the machine was probably a hack job also, but was told that the owner had two of them that were built like this and believed they were manufactured that way.


andydotp wrote:I figure marsonion's nailed it. =D>
Perhaps akin to what National (?) produced to conceal elaborate slug detectors on other brands - like the very tall-headed Jennings & Pace examples (which are dead-set real).
It certainly fits the time period but I'll happily stand corrected - on marsonion's behalf :oops: :oops:
Always keen to learn from here, thx.
(answers on the back of a fifty BTW)
andydotp


I'd sure appreciate a link to a picture or a printed page reference of an example of the "very tall-headed" machines, because I sure can't recollect where I've seen them before. I've scoured books and magazines for a couple of hours already, but turned up nothing. And Andy, it would make me feel lots better to know I wasn't hallucinating those nightmarish slug-detecting towers. :oops:

But since we're on the topic of strange design stories, there's something I ran across months ago that put me down an internet rabbithole. While doing an image search of Caille-related items, I ran across this penny scale site which included a picture of a Caille Moderne:

http://www.theamericanweigh.com/images/ ... 0back.html

I knew I had seen that loathsome puce-and-black color scheme somewhere before. Sure enough, here's a Dictator that could be that penny scale's vile spawn, right here on our fine host's website:

http://www.ibuyoldslots.com/priceGuide/ ... 387382.jpg

Because they both contain essentially the same gem-cut art deco design elements and motifs in addition to the same presumably original color scheme (what sort of pervert would paint up anything this way today--?) I was convinced that the Caille Moderne penny scale and the Caille Dictator slot cabinet were designed by the same hand (I'm willing to entertain arguments to the contrary). I emailed the penny scale website collector asking about this, and he very helpfully directed me to some patent materials available online; see the attached illustrations. I believe this "Harry E. Knupp" designed not only the looks of the Caille Dictator, but years later was enlisted to design the AC MultiBell. (Somewhere in between, superstar industrial designer George W. Walker was put in charge of cosmetics for the Dough-Boys, Cadets, Commanders, Play-Boys and Knockouts, and then a decade later was made a VP at Ford where he headed up the design of the first T-birds. Not so sure Walker is to blame for the "stingray" trim, though.) So, who was this Knupp fellow?

It turns out, Harry E. Knupp was Adolph Caille's son-in-law!

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/us ... -1429.html
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby andydotp » Wed Jul 17, 2013 3:21 am

marsonion wrote:I'd sure appreciate a link to a picture or a printed page reference of an example of the "very tall-headed" machines, because I sure can't recollect where I've seen them before. I've scoured books and magazines for a couple of hours already, but turned up nothing. And Andy, it would make me feel lots better to know I wasn't hallucinating those nightmarish slug-detecting towers. :oops:



No, you're definitely not hallucinating there marsonion.
Whether (we're) on the money about the tall casting on the Caille remains to be seen but
National touted a range of supposedly slug-proof coin detectors/rejectors and they were very tall.
I remembered (hence posting last evening) that they were tried by Jennings (Super Chief & Master Chief) and Pace (Slugproof Rocket).
Purely from memory,,,, try A Collector's Treasury.. pg 261
OK so I cheated by double-checking my memory :oops:
There's an article covering slug detectors somewhere I'm sure.
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Re: Caille Play-Boy (No Lemon)

Postby Bucky » Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:19 pm

marsonion wrote:Here are some pictures of a late-model Caille machine (the owner was sure it was a Play-Boy) with some sort of stingray-like plate of trim at the top surrounding the denomination tag-- really, I have no idea why they would've done something like this. Also, a I'm posting a copy of the Knockout model ad from Bueschel's "Lemons, Cherries..." etc.


I now own the black machine in the pictures above. Purchased off of ebay. The mechanism is identical to every other Caille machine I have, so no special slug detection exists.

I was a little disappointed in the condition as received, as the pictures did not represent (to me) the actual condition of the case. There was a fair amount of corrosion / pitting of the case. And the mechanism needs work...

Oh well.

If anyone wants any specific view, I can take pictures.
The tag number on mine is 113485.

Hi Patrick!
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