by watlingboy » Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:31 pm
I am of the opinion that the machine is original but am also of the opinion it was made for the foreign market. Most of the machines like this have been imported from France and Belgium, and there have been a ton. Those inserts in the vender doors came with the machine originally and it was up to the operator whether to display the mints or put in the inserts. All these machines worked on a quarter but were usually a 2/4 pay and will pay short unless the slides are altered as the French coin was thinner. These were made in the U.S. for the foreign market even though the head parts are stamped 25 cents. They often showed up back in the states missing numerious things such as skill stop mechanism on mech, gold award parts and part or all of the vender mechanism. In the listing photo I don't see the vender knob and the owner never answers that question when asked, question at bottom of listing. As Dave mentioned, most skill stop machines are foreign but they were made for the U.S. market but much more uncommon. Notice the 25 cent denomination badge is a reproduction and not even screwed to the escalator, it appears to be glued on.
Watlingboy