CoinOpCollectorForum.com

eBay item number:291324442178

In this auction we have an early, antique Mills Five Cent Spearmint Gooseneck Slot Machine numbered 55297. We do not claim to be experts in slot machines so we will share with you what we know. Set on a wooden base, this slot machine functions when we placed a nickle in the slot and pull the lever. So cool!



Have a look at the insides to get a good impression of just how well this BTS, hay-wired wreck really "works." Hey, who needs those silly finger springs anyhow--?

Hey .... I saw the spring... and it sure is a long one too. Streched out from the top to the bottom. This is the barn find we all like to find., but at a 400$ price tag would be right.
Dave F

This slot sure is rough, but it may just be an early cast iron slot, curved reel glass and the spearmint logo under the sight glass, the mech may not be correct, the two cast iron ones that I worked on both had the pin mech.

The castings are aluminum.
The mech, is a transitional mech.
has features common to a pin mech, as well as those found on the later flat finger mechs.

It is a aluminum casting machine - two ways to tell is the serial # places it in the early 1920's before Mills changed the design of their slot machines and the cast iron bells had the year of manufacture in the bell on the lower casting below '1776'. The mechanism is correct for this machine.

Mills put the year in the bell from I believe, 1915 through 1917. They then shut down slot manufacturing to produce war armaments for WWI. They started up again with slot manufacturing in 1920 as did most all manufacturers. The wood sided Operator Bell was produced in cast iron after WWI but with no date in the bell. Caille, Watling, Jennings and Mills all made their machines in cast iron after WWI but later changed to aluminum. I was always told that the switch to aluminum for Mills was 1924. Bueschel says that Jennings didn't make switch to aluminum until 1927.

Watlingboy

According to Dick Bueshels "Slots 4" page 62, Mills switched to aluminum castings in 1922 with the old style castings and the 1776 bell on the lower casting with curved glass over the reels on the upper casting. Serial #'s were between 53,000 and 60,000. They introduced the new flat glass castings in 1923 with the two owls on the lower casting. It gets confusing sometimes on these early goosenecks.

I'm very skeptical regarding the Q&A at the bottom of the page: a representative of the seller indicates that only castings attached to the base which extend up a couple of inches are aluminum, but it's all cast iron from there on up! I find this very hard to believe. First, in all of the spots where the dirty red spraypaint has flaked, a grayish-white metal is revealed, free of any rust... compare these naked casting surfaces on the backside to the exposed steel of the mechanism to see what I mean. Also, the shipping weight is given as 50 1/2 Lb! I doubt that that is even possible with aluminum castings, let alone cast iron. I'm taking these claims with the same huge grain of salt as the "working!" condition of the machine...

Thoughts?

seller does not know what time of day it is.
but, if you decipher his answer... it "kind of" makes sense.
the bottom is aluminum. he then migrated to the award card frame... which is steel, and, a magnet will stick.
As i stated earlier... the castings are aluminum,, Nnot iron.
the mechanism is a transitional mech, have features peculiar to round, and, flat finger mechanisms.
IF this post is read from the beginning (as all posts should be so things are not taken out of context) it will be perfectly clear as to exactly what this machine is, regardless of what the ad description / seller states.

Midcoast Vintage wrote:seller does not know what time of day it is.
but, if you decipher his answer... it "kind of" makes sense.
the bottom is aluminum. he then migrated to the award card frame... which is steel, and, a magnet will stick.
AS I STATED EARLIER... the castings are aluminum,, NOT IRON.
the mechanism is a transitional mech, have features peculiar to round, and, flat finger mechanisms.
IF this post is read from the beginning (as all posts should be so things are not taken out of context) it will be perfectly clear as to EXACTLY what this machine is, REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE AD DESCRIPTION, AND / OR WHAT THE SELLER STATES.

You don't need to yell, MV. I did read all the posts on this thread, and the bogus eBay seller Q&A with one of the earlier posters here is more recent than was the latest entry in this discussion. I was pointing to this as the latest howler thrown on top of a pile of utterly unreliable claims by the seller, who really ought to be flagged for explicit misrepresentation. Unless there's someone here who wants to make a case for the seller's claims--? I'm asking.