English Victory Flag Wall Machine

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English Victory Flag Wall Machine

Postby coinops » Sun Jun 28, 2015 12:33 pm

HI,

I recently bought this British wall machine called "The Victory Flag" at a local auction here in Cleveland and would like to know who made it, when it was made and what it might be worth. The machine was restored and works on British half-pennies. It appears to work well - the British Flag rotates up, the ball is returned and a coin is dispensed when the third ball is caught.

Victory Flag1.jpg


Thanks,

-Al
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Re: English Victory Flag Wall Machine

Postby clubconsoles » Thu Sep 17, 2015 9:27 am

Hi Al
try the open forum at
www.pennymachines.co.uk.
these are the experts on these machines.
Nigel
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Re: English Victory Flag Wall Machine

Postby neocoinops » Thu Sep 17, 2015 6:11 pm

Nigel,

Thanks, I tried registering at the UK site, but it won't let me register, so I can't post any questions about my Victory Flag.

-Al
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Re: English Victory Flag Wall Machine

Postby Anglobritish » Thu Sep 17, 2015 7:08 pm

Al,
Your machine was made in 1913 by Bill Thompson, his company was called The Coin Operating Company based in Birmingham, the original machine was called AllieI Flags, but after World War I he called it the Concoring Flags, or the Victory Flags, prior to World War I The German company Jentzsch & Meer started a law suite over copyright, but when the first World War broke out in 1914, the law suite could not go ahead and Thompson carried on making copies of the German machines including the popular Clown model. Bill Thompson died in 1939.

Your machine unfortunately is not very collectable here in the States, in Europe it would bring around $1,200-$1.700 if it is totally original, I would suggest you contact The Gauselmann Museum in Germany, they may be interested, they have about 700 wall machines in their collection.
Freddy Bailey
The Official British Coin Machine Historian
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Re: English Victory Flag Wall Machine

Postby aristocrat » Fri Sep 18, 2015 1:37 am

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Re: English Victory Flag Wall Machine

Postby coinops » Sat Sep 19, 2015 2:59 pm

Freddy / Aristocrat,

Thanks for the info and UK posting. I'm not sure why these machines aren't more popular in the States. I think they look great and lot's of fun to play. At least I didn't have to pay much $$$ for it, especially since it went through a complete restoration by the former owner. He even left before and after photos and it was a basket case, which explains why he needed to cut in new lock and hinge wood.

Thanks again, guys!

-AL
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Re: English Victory Flag Wall Machine

Postby automaticpleasures » Sun Sep 20, 2015 4:56 am

Hi there saw this post and thought I’d add my bit- Freddie’s version is a little bit garbled but I’ll let others contribute their knowledge in terms of detail. Key thing is that there were 3 different machines: The Allies Flags, The Conquerors Flags, and The Victors Flags which came out during and shortly after WW1 by different makers including Thompson in Birmingham- another manufacturing company for instance was based in Scotland.

They are all very rare and historical pieces, and great fun to play. One went for some $3500 dollars in 2006- so you have done well. Why Americans should shun them I do not understand since they were played in droves by the thousands of Yankees who came over the pond to fight in WWI.
They are certainly part of US history as well.

As far as coin machines are concerned there appears to be chauvinism on the part of our American cousins and they seem to have swallowed hook line and sinker the advertising PR bullshit of the US manufacturing companies of the 1930’s-50’s who readily fabricated history to suit themselves which is currently believed as reality.

On prime example is Thomas Adams who in “1888, invented and marketed the first American gum vending machine”. This is just one of many examples that will hopefully be exposed in my forthcoming work.

Have any of you heard of the coin operated amusement arcade functioning in the 1860’s in the UK attracting so many people that the police had to be called to control the crowds? I bet not.

Many of the received US ‘inventions’, inventors, and early investors were in fact British.

Up until the First World War the US lagged behind the UK and Europe in terms of the adoption and dispersal of the new technology- This is a constant theme of the American press of the time- why oh why is America so slow on the uptake?

For many Americans at the time the only way to get ahead was to come to live in Europe and to patent and sell their ideas there- so there are a number of inventors/inventions which have been classified as British/ Foreign and therefore largely ignored by Americans. A glaring example is Charles Adams Randall, who was in fact a New Yorker who took out the first Juke box patent a year before Louis Glass in the US- which on closer inspection contrary to current knowledge does appear to have been manufactured/ marketed in Europe- leading ultimately to the company which produced the early Beatles records!!. He has largely been ignored in the US presumably because the assumption was that he was British and therefore not important.

The more astute of the American collectors have long been aware of this- that early British coin machine history is in fact early American coin machine history- the two cannot be separated. Whilst the crowd has been chasing each other for relatively commonplace stuff, the discerning few have cleverly gone off on their own and amassed wonderful collections of some very rare, historic, and desirable pieces


So don’t look down on British stuff- it’s your nation’s history as well!! And there’s still a lot out there waiting to be found.

Nic Costa
Author: Automatic Pleasures, More Automatic Pleasures, The Penny Machine Picture Book
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