Horsehead Bonus color schemes

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Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby youngjedi » Sat Mar 02, 2019 3:35 pm

Hello Everyone,

Charlie here from C&A Slot restorations. I have a simple question. I recently acquired a Horsehead Bonus for my personal collection. It totally needs a restore and new paint...plays perfectly.

With the business (C&A Slot Restoration) we try to stick to original paint schemes for our customers, but if the customer wants something different, we have no problem doing that as well.

Since this is my machine and not a customers, I want to paint it with original paint. I love the one Dave has on the Youtube video, (brown with creamy white), but he is pretty sure that is not original. It appears that the original color was brown with bright green (jockey horse racing look) on the front ribbon. I , as well as Dave, think that is ugly.

I have restored one machine for a customer that is Blue with red ribbon (customer request), but I was wondering if anyone knew of any other paint schemes mills might have used.

Thanks,
Charlie
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby rtmccurdy » Sat Mar 02, 2019 4:28 pm

Here's an option. All original horsehead bonus with hammer gold (cabinet, case, and handle base), hammer red, and perhaps plated horse, and front decoration.
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby MONTI » Sat Mar 02, 2019 5:50 pm

This one came thru my shop for a tune-up of the mechanism a few months back and I wish I had taken better pictures of it!
But from the patina and wear on the casting and also the fact that apparently it left the factory during WW2 when aluminum was of a premium for the war effort portions of it were cast iron and I believe they painted the horse head because the ones made of aluminum where highly buffed aluminum finish and this one being cast iron was painted as you can't buff cast iron, right? LOL
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Horse Head Bonus.jpg
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby YourBestBet » Sat Mar 02, 2019 5:58 pm

MONTI wrote:This one came thru my shop for a tune-up of the mechanism a few months back and I wish I had taken better pictures of it!
But from the patina and wear on the casting and also the fact that apparently it left the factory during WW2 when aluminum was of a premium for the war effort portions of it were cast iron and I believe they painted the horse head because the ones made of aluminum where highly buffed aluminum finish and this one being cast iron was painted as you can't buff cast iron, right? LOL
MONTI

Horse Head Bonus.jpg


I don't believe this was an original color scheme. It was probably restored a few decades ago.
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby MONTI » Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:00 pm

Found a couple more pictures of it I forgot I had!
In these you can see the wear in some areas of what I believe is the original paint scheme but I could be wrong!
My wife tells me I am all the time! LOL
MONTI

DSC09989.JPG


DSC09993.JPG


DSC09995.JPG
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby YourBestBet » Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:23 pm

I believe there were a few color schemes based on cast iron or aluminum castings. The cast iron version has the white painted horse.
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby capt7310 » Sun Mar 03, 2019 6:50 am

Hi Charlie, Here's my Horsehead Bonus and it was repainted to the original colors for the cast iron machine. I do have a before and after pic.
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horse head bonus.jpg
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby MONTI » Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:51 am

I'm pretty sure there is MILLS sales literature out there on the Horse Head Bonus as it was an unusual slot for its time and I believe I have seen it in my literature at some point over the last 35 Plus years I've been in the hobby but before I go nuts trying to find it in my stacks of Gameroom, Loose Change and Coinslot stuff there must be someone out there with it, right?
If you have it can you post it here on the forum?
Grazie!
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby youngjedi » Sun Mar 03, 2019 10:56 am

Thank You Everyone.
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Re: Horsehead Bonus color schemes

Postby MONTI » Sun Mar 03, 2019 10:59 am

Unfortunately a lot of the early publications on Vintage Slot Machines were in Black & White format but as we are talking about the Mills Horse Head Bonus I thought I'd post this from Dick Beacshels book!
Surprisingly the pricing from then in some market areas has stayed fairly close to his pricing shown here!
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