Mills Mystery/Castle Front questions

[Shane]

Just purchased my third machine - a Mills Castle Front. A few observations I'm wondering if anyone can shed some detail on...

- The Jackpot unit has a chute on the back that goes to the cash box. However, I don't see anything on the mech that would divert coins to this chute. What is the purpose of this?

- Someone hand wrote the payouts on the Award Card but it appears the red circle where payouts are usually printed has always been blank (as opposed to faded out over time). Were the blank circles part of the "Mystery" of these machines?

- In the attached pic of the bottom plate, you can see a square has been cut out of an area above the cash box. It was obviously done by a former owner but have no idea what purpose it served. Is this just a one-off situation or was there a reason this area would sometimes be cut out?

- It is a 10 cent play machine. The payouts are often 1 coin short (Oranges pay 9, Plums 13, etc.). Curious if this, again, is part of the "Mystery", if it is due to FDR dimes and Mercury's were maybe thinner, or perhaps just gummed up slides.

Thanks for your help.

Shane

[atac]

Hi Shane-- the chute is part of the check separation assembly. The complete assembly has a spring loaded kicker on the escalator advance bar, which kicks out the nickels or anything without a hole in the middle, the nickels travel down the other chutes to the coin box. The checks travel into the coin tube and jackpot as primary payout. Here's a pic of the other parts (incl your partial chute). I don't believe the payouts are any part of the mystery--it's either something going on with your slides or old dime/new dime issues. The mystery of the castle front was the 3/5 pay--all others to this point were 2/4 pay. I have a couple sets $83.45 ppd for anybody that wants one.

[Shane]

atac,

Thanks for the detailed explanation and pic. I wondered how checks and coins were separated.

Best,

Shane

[Walter Newton]

Hi Shane-- the chute is part of the check separation assembly. The complete assembly has a spring loaded kicker on the escalator advance bar, which kicks out the nickels or anything without a hole in the middle, the nickels travel down the other chutes to the coin box. The checks travel into the coin tube and jackpot as primary payout. Here's a pic of the other parts (incl your partial chute). I don't believe the payouts are any part of the mystery--it's either something going on with your slides or old dime/new dime issues. The mystery of the castle front was the 3/5 pay--all others to this point were 2/4 pay. I have a couple sets $83.45 ppd for anybody that wants one.

I have this assembly on my 25 cent Mills FOK Vender, but the quarters all travel on to the coin tube, not directly to the coin box.

Which is fine with me, I'd rather have the machine payout in currency, instead of checks.

But,

Is there something on the escalator that turns this feature "on/off."

[atac]

I would guess either the spring is unhooked or weak or that kicker has been removed.