Grand Prize Question

[marsonion]

I bought a Caille Grand Prize about a year ago. The big selling point for me at the time was the fact that it's a 25 cent machine, and I thought that's gotta be pretty rare: here's a Great Depression Era machine taking what must've been the equivalent to playing $10-$15 a pull today. It must have been some high-end speakeasy to feature a game like that! I snatched up this presumed rarity at what looked like a very low price, got it all working and restored it to stock appearance as best I could.

Today I see there are two 25c Grand Prizes up for auction on eBay, and they're certainly not the first I've seen posted there over the last year. Worse, looking over my list of later model Caille serial numbers (Bueschel/Zimmerman 1992) I see that of 16 Grand Prizes listed, no less than six of them are in the 25c denomination! What gives? Whenever I see a 1932 War Eagle or other Mills machine playing quarters, I naturally assume the damn thing is a fake. Now I'm sure nobody would've bothered to fake or repro any Caille bell machines-- so how to explain this glut of 25c GP's during a period (1929-1932) when anybody would've felt lucky to earn $3.50 per day? Maybe Prohibition and the Great Depression weren't all that prohibitive or depressing for a lot of people-- ?

Does anybody have any explanations?

[Mills]

Hi,
sorry for my bad english !!
France import in the 30's many slot machine (caille, Jennings, Mills and Watling). In France, the "1 franc" coin has the same size than the 25c$...
So, practically all the slot machine we found in france are for 25c$.
In the 70's many american business man bought french slot machine to re-import to USA. May be this is why you find now in USA many 25c$ slot machine !

[marsonion]

Thank you, Mills-- that is a very reasonable explanation! Do you know of anything I can look for to indicate that my machine (serial# 50200) was originally manufactured for the French market and then returned to the USA? Are there any import or export marks on the frame or other variations of manufacture between the 1 Franc and 25c machines?

BTW, this board on which you appear was useful in restoring my Cadet:

http://www.flipjuke.fr/help-caille-cade ... 59079.html

Hi,
sorry for my bad english !!
France import in the 30's many slot machine (caille, Jennings, Mills and Watling). In France, the "1 franc" coin has the same size than the 25c$...
So, practically all the slot machine we found in france are for 25c$.
In the 70's many american business man bought french slot machine to re-import to USA. May be this is why you find now in USA many 25c$ slot machine !

[coppinpr]

I assume you are sure all of the machine is original otherwise it would seem the best answer is it was converted to 25c at a later date. Are you kidding when you say no one would copy or repro the machine? you must be, if they repro Hi-tops they would certainly repro Gp's

[marsonion]

No, I'm not kidding. On mine, the serial numbers on the mech and cabinet castings match and follow the Caille production numbers of its period. The mechanical parts, castings, shoulder screws, etc. all indicate the age of its manufacture, and, if you know anything about the Superior line, you know that reproducing all those castings and machined parts for converting to a higher denomination would be a pretty expensive and difficult feat. Aside from offering reproduction aluminum castings for the cabinets, do you know of anyone anywhere who has repro'd any Caille Superior mechanism? We all know Mills mechs have been remanufactured, and we also all know who's been doing it; can the same be said for 1930's Cailles? In other words, do you have any evidence for your argument?

I assume you are sure all of the machine is original otherwise it would seem the best answer is it was converted to 25c at a later date. Are you kidding when you say no one would copy or repro the machine? you must be, if they repro Hi-tops they would certainly repro Gp's

[coppinpr]

i never said your machine was a fake, in fact you said that! as i said in my post i asume you are sure all the part are original,

[marsonion]

i never said your machine was a fake, in fact you said that!

Where? Where did I "in fact" say or even suggest that my machine is or could be a fake? In fact, I strongly suggest in my original post that it couldn't be.

"In fact," what you wrote was:

it would seem the best answer is it was converted to 25c at a later date. Are you kidding when you say no one would copy or repro the machine? you must be, if they repro Hi-tops they would certainly repro Gp's

Pretty strong words. As a Caille collector, I'd like to know who "they" are, the people you are so certain are knocking off repros of Superior mechs and would be capable of, say, converting a nickel GP mech into a 25c machine. I'm attaching a picture provided by the seller before I bought the machine; in order to change the coinage, nearly all of the elaborate castings and machined parts on the right side would have to be reproduced and converted. He must be a very assiduous miscreant to go to all that trouble, and fake that worn, antique look to his evil handiwork besides. A remanufactured Caille Superior mechanism? Does anyone have such a monster? And if any fraudster already had all of this 25c Superior hardware handy, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to get hold of a set of repro Naked Lady cabinet aluminium (which are available, unfortunately) and try to fake something more desirable than a GP?

So, I'll ask you again, do you have even the tiniest scrap of evidence to support your claim that "the best answer is it was converted to 25c at a later date"? I'd sincerely like to know. I might want to get hold of some spare parts from these excellent fakers.

[millslot]

Well from the picture it looks original to me. The people that go around selling "fakes" and "re-manufactured" machines and what not, are mostly out there to just rip off unsuspecting first time buyers, or the people that only want a machine for their game rooms, etc. Also if there is any reasonable doubt that something is wrong, the machine having been converted is a completely viable answer. Because, lets face it, if somebody had the extra parts on hand or knew where to get them (not necessarily even repro's) they could have changed them out to make the machine more valuable. It is also possible that it was switched very early on, simply to meet the operators needs. However, there are usually some tell tale signs if your machine has been messed around with, for instance, stripped screws, etc. .... this is just my opinion though, hope it helps.

ps: whomever "they" are that could possibly be reproducing an antique slot machine, i would assume, is whoever ended up with the original factory casts and dies

[marsonion]

Thanks, but I think this still begs the question that the reason for the large number of 25c GP's around today is that they were mostly somehow converted at some point in their histories. I don't see any evidence of that sort of tampering on mine and see no reason to assume the GPs on eBay right now (for instance) were tampered with in this way-- and it would take an entire factory floor to reproduce all those varied parts and materials for these ostensible conversions, even if you ended up with all the patterns and dies. But frankly, I would've preferred that sort of conversion over the earlier "work" actually done to my GP: somebody bashed out the weave casting in front of the jackpot to get at the quarters!

I posted my question here-- asking why the hell aren't these 25c machines a lot rarer than they are?-- and I think I got a satisfactory answer from Mills: a great number of these were made for a foreign market that takes a similarly sized but effectively lower denomination of coinage, and then they were returned to the US collector market later. That way, all the reseller(s) had to do was change some award paper out. Guess what? I do see evidence of that: somebody had chopped in a "Play Quarters" label on the payout marquee on mine. I covered that with repro paper from MFP during my restoration, but I kept everything.

Well from the picture it looks original to me. The people that go around selling "fakes" and "re-manufactured" machines and what not, are mostly out there to just rip off unsuspecting first time buyers, or the people that only want a machine for their game rooms, etc. Also if there is any reasonable doubt that something is wrong, the machine having been converted is a completely viable answer. Because, lets face it, if somebody had the extra parts on hand or knew where to get them (not necessarily even repro's) they could have changed them out to make the machine more valuable. It is also possible that it was switched very early on, simply to meet the operators needs. However, there are usually some tell tale signs if your machine has been messed around with, for instance, stripped screws, etc. .... this is just my opinion though, hope it helps.

ps: whomever "they" are that could possibly be reproducing an antique slot machine, i would assume, is whoever ended up with the original factory casts and dies

[coppinpr]

Im not getting into a row over this ,i was only making a suggestion. I do take exception to you taking my quote out of context, what i actually said was

'I assume you are sure all of the machine is original otherwise it would seem the best answer is it was converted to 25c at a later date'

which would ofcourse make sense AND infers your machine is for real. if im wrong im wrong but dont try and bend the words