Mills Poinsettia jackpot windows…designs?

[jerryt]

Hello all,

I’m trying to get a handle on the various jackpot windows on the poinsettia (and I guess others in this line)
I have seen open window, the cross design etc, I presume they are not random.

Is there a date clue from them ?

Best
JerryT

[nvmos2]

Interesting question; seems like all the slot makers had some variations in casting designs, many for no apparent reason than somebody thought it looked better.

If you want to date a machine, your best approach is to use the serial number data bases; even with them you'll usually only get an approximation.
Early Poinsettias had the date 1929 in the casting, but that was soon dropped.

As to bars over JP glass on the Mills Poinsettia;
I think you will find:
early ones did not have the bars.
bars over the JP glass can be found in serial numbers as early as 221xxx, but appear mostly in the 234xxx - 235xxx range.
there are at least 2 designs for the Mills JP bars.
there are machines that were produced with the bars, but later had the bars cut out to make the JP coins more visible (attaching points are often obvious)(although the bars may have been an attempt to too prevent thieves from breaking the JP glass, some operators apparently thought it was more important to see a bunch of coins, and the thick version bars really cut down visibility).

Note: Many Poinsettia JPs with bars are not Mills JP fronts; there were a lot of revamp JP fronts by other companies that copied the Poinsettia design.

[jerryt]

Thank - you
That’s helped my curiosity a lot!

Hopefully collecting my Poinsettia soon

Best JT