fake golden nugget on ebay

[Midcoast Vintage]

YET ANOTHER FAKE.
HERE IS THE AUCTION:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 1243540942

I EMAILED THEM WITH THIS MESSAGE:
HI,
this machine is not an antique.
it is a total reproduction.
it was not made by mills.
there are no mills parts on the machine.
this was never on location as a gambling machine at the golden nugget.
it may have been on display in the gift shop, but, was never used as an actual casino machine.
i have been a collector / historian of antique slot machines for over 40 years.
i also had a slot machine restoration shop in vegas in the '80's.
please amend your ad with a proper description so some un-knowledgeable buyer does not get burned thinking they are getting an original machine, and could potentially leave you negative feedback, and, sue you for misrepresentation. (it has happened numerous times to sellers misrepresenting new machines as antiques).http://cgi.ebay.com

[BEER4U]

Wow, the seller ended the auction already.

Are these slots still being made today or mostly leftovers
from when they did them in the 80's(I only said 80's since I
remember seeing that date on here someplace, I have
no first hand knowledge).

If they were made in the 80's, could they still sell them as antique
gambling machines as long as they stated so what they really were?
I mean the law doesn't specifically state they had to be working units
in a real casino, right?(Although all the state laws are different).
You just don't want them to misrepresent them(I applaud your efforts,
because I could very well be one of those people that could get duped
if I wasn't careful.)

And why do the old ones always get found in barns? Is there a seedy
underworld among bovines that I'm not aware of???

[Dave]

I also sent them a very politely worded message telling them that they had a reproduction.

Perhaps they decided to end the auction as to not perpetuate the fraud.

Regarding the legality of selling reproduction machines. That is something that always baffled me.

When Royal Bell was (maybe still are) pumping out brand new machines and labeling them as 'remanufactured' it seemed to me that here is a company making working gambling machines that are brand new how could they legally do it???? It sure seemed to me that if a aw enforcement wanted to they could have shut them down for making gambling devices.

[gamblingman]

you are correct....anything "re-manufactured" should not be allowed under the law, but the problems are in the details....and most folks just don't want to deal with it.

Who is going to be the expert in metalurgy that is going to testify the machine was not made in the 1930's......you and I might be able to tell the difference, or at least think we can tell the difference, but are you really going to state your reputation on a gear pulled from a MIlls clock? and could I hold up two and you bet everything on knowing which is original and which is repro?

Also, when most states enacted their laws, they wanted to cover all angles, so they placed in wording such as "any such machine, or any part of such machine".....which would lend you to believe that just having one piece of an illegal slot machine in your pocket was an arrestable offense. But that same wording can be used against the state as the manufacturers can say that just having one old piece makes a "whole", then just having an old piece on a machine makes it antique. I know a lot of these guys were using an old spring or two and calling these things "re-manufactured". Where do you set the percentage? 50% repro, 70% ??? Can you guarantee everything in your collection is original enough and that you have never used a repro part? What about wood? If you replace the base and sides, what percentage of the machine is that? and does that make it now "re-manufactured"? It is common to replace the wood on restorations......whay is that acceptable and castings are not? And you can't say it is because wood rots.....so does aluminum and steel, just at different rates. What percentage is the mech vs the case? Any definations you comne up with need to cover every machine and possible combination out there. There are a whole list of arguments I can make........ Believe me, I am NOT saying they should be allowed to reproduce these things at will, but who is going to spend the time dealing with it?

And then you have the whole question of intent. Mechanical slots are not more of a novelty item......so is any jury going to see the harm in a business making "novelty slot machines" so long as they are represented as something other than original? If they are produced in mass and shipped to a hidden casino somewhere....maybe. But for uncle George to go and buy one because he always wanted a slot in his den, is not the crime of the century. I hate the repros, and I hate what they do to the industry. It is just a matter of time before we start seeing these machines being taken apart as they get older, and all of the parts sold as "original finds" on the web. Who is going to know the difference? Not many......

[Bill zap]

I actually know part of the story on these Mills repos......I grew up in the coin op business my dad was an operator in Chicago and use to take me with him on the route and to the distributors. Back in the late 70's I was operating the old mans route he had gotten sick and it dwindled down to 24 pieces on the street and about two hundred in a couple of garages. So through my career ( I built the route up to over 500 pieces and about 200 gum and toy vendors) I've met quite a few characters from this industry. No names but I actually bought a few of these machines from the shop were they we're being made on Cicero avenue near North avenue in Chicago. The owners had been former employees of Mills and had "liberated" the molds to make parts and a lot of the old parts to make these machines. What I remember the most about the machines was that the escalators were dummies and that the machines were very light weight. The advertising literature that they had never claimed that these were repos or reconstructed machines. At this time Illinois allowed slot machines as long as they were 15 years or older. Maybe the intention was that the technology was older then 15 years and was allowable under the law. But I never heard of anybody getting busted for buying or selling these repos. Oh yea why do coin op machines wind up in barns? Because when the city operators were done running the equipment and it became outdated a lot of these items were either sold to operators in the rural areas or sold out of the united states. And my guest is that the farmer just threw in the barn or burned it. And probably they were spared the fire because they just seemed too good to burn.

[Dave]

you are correct....anything "re-manufactured" should not be allowed under the law, but the problems are in the details....and most folks just don't want to deal with it.

Who is going to be the expert in metalurgy that is going to testify the machine was not made in the 1930's......you and I might be able to tell the difference, or at least think we can tell the difference, but are you really going to state your reputation on a gear pulled from a MIlls clock? and could I hold up two and you bet everything on knowing which is original and which is repro?

Also, when most states enacted their laws, they wanted to cover all angles, so they placed in wording such as "any such machine, or any part of such machine".....which would lend you to believe that just having one piece of an illegal slot machine in your pocket was an arrestable offense. But that same wording can be used against the state as the manufacturers can say that just having one old piece makes a "whole", then just having an old piece on a machine makes it antique. I know a lot of these guys were using an old spring or two and calling these things "re-manufactured". Where do you set the percentage? 50% repro, 70% ??? Can you guarantee everything in your collection is original enough and that you have never used a repro part? What about wood? If you replace the base and sides, what percentage of the machine is that? and does that make it now "re-manufactured"? It is common to replace the wood on restorations......whay is that acceptable and castings are not? And you can't say it is because wood rots.....so does aluminum and steel, just at different rates. What percentage is the mech vs the case? Any definations you comne up with need to cover every machine and possible combination out there. There are a whole list of arguments I can make........ Believe me, I am NOT saying they should be allowed to reproduce these things at will, but who is going to spend the time dealing with it?

And then you have the whole question of intent. Mechanical slots are not more of a novelty item......so is any jury going to see the harm in a business making "novelty slot machines" so long as they are represented as something other than original? If they are produced in mass and shipped to a hidden casino somewhere....maybe. But for uncle George to go and buy one because he always wanted a slot in his den, is not the crime of the century. I hate the repros, and I hate what they do to the industry. It is just a matter of time before we start seeing these machines being taken apart as they get older, and all of the parts sold as "original finds" on the web. Who is going to know the difference? Not many......

I hear what you are saying but I am still surprised that some anti gambling law enforcement zealot never busted RB for making brand new slot machines. It would not have been difficult to do a raid and basically see an assembly line putting the brand new machines together. I remember seeing an article in Loose Change showing the RB fake Rol-A-Tops. They showed a table with a line of the fakes. Fortunately, in the case of the Rol-A-Top, RB did a horrible job on them and they are butt ugly and easy to spot. No escalator and I think they have a Pace mechanism. In this case, RB, was basically making a brand new machine. Kind of like what Rock-Ola did with the revamps.

If they would have got their records I am sure they could have found the foundry that was making the castings and parts for them.

As far as the argument of using original parts. Let's say an original antique has 500 parts (counting screws, springs, nuts, etc.). They could theoretically take the parts on just one antique and use those parts to pump out 500 "remanufactured" machines by using just one part in each "remanufactured" machine.