Dime Trade Checks from Ace Hardware

[marsonion]

Or maybe not. Several weeks ago I got the check detection mechanism all up and running on my 1934 Caille Dictator dime machine, only to realize that I didn't have any trade checks to run through the thing anyway. Then a couple nights ago I thought I saw a dime on the ground by my car, but it turned out to be somewhat messed-up washer which had fallen off of something. I picked it up and compared it to a dime-- aside from the hole in the middle, it was a pretty good match for thickness and diameter... hmmm. I carried it over to the local Ace Hardware, and found it mostly resembled item#54811. I bought 20 of them at 18 cents each.

http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/Produc ... ?SKU=54811

My Dictator didn't like them at first. They would drop easily down the coin acceptor and head immediately to the cashbox. I opened up the gooseneck-like portion of the coin acceptor and found the culprit: a little horseshoe magnet which was no doubt built in there to prevent idiots from wasting 18 cent washers on a 10 cent machine. I pulled the magnet out and immediately the Dictator was running these ersatz trade checks just as it should-- a little prong under the "loster claw" to the escalator penetrates the hole which causes a linkage to the rear to rise and tip a weighted dog which in turn locks back the payout fingers for the rest of the cycle. Playing a dime returns the cycle to normal.

I've already played through a couple batches of these makeshift trade checks down the coin tube and out the coin slides with no ill effects save a little thickness issue-- the 4x payouts only deliver three of these guys, and a stack of ten washers is about eleven dimes high. Maybe this would murder a Jennings or a Mills, but it seems to work fine on this Dictator. My Caille Commander is also a 10 cent machine, so I'll give it a try there too. Not so sure I'm ready to try it out on our 10 cent Jennings Club Chief Lightup Tic-Tac-Toe machine, though.

Has anyone else tried this sort of thing? Are there nickel- and quarter-sized washers out there which can be swallowed by some machines but not others? Is this a great way to ruin an antique slot machine?