Hi Guy's,
Sorry to disagree with Bill, but I am also certain that Caille did not have a manufacturing plant in France. The Caille Company started their first business behind their house at East Saginaw, Michigan in 1888, there were four partners in this venture Adolphe Caille his younger brother Arthur along with Jacob Scheimer and Robert Yates, they first started the Caille Cash Carrier Service supplying a money carrying service, they only got into the coin machine business after the newly formed Mills Novelty Company brought out their Owl model in 1897, they in turn built their Puck model, originally there were too seperate companies, The Caille Company and Caille-Scheimer, it was not until 1901 when Adolphe Caille moved to Detroit and was joined by his younger brother Arthur that they started The Caille Brothers Company, by this time Jacob Steimer and Robert Yates had left and started their own company also producing a version of the Puck model.
Has the Caille Brothers Company progressed they established field offices in several Countries including France, they had an office in Paris and one in Marsilles these were under the name of the Caille Novelty Company, they also had a close association with a French distributor by the name of Abel Nau, who was the main distributor for the U.S company Cowper, Abel Nau later formed his own company and went on to produce many variations of the popular wall model Roulette games, it is my understanding that Abel Nau did the conversions to the American Caille machines to suit the French market.
Regarding the Caille production facility in Toledo, Ohio, I know very little about it. I do know that when the company Caille-Scheimer was in business they had field offices in Chicago,Jersey City, San Francisco and Detroit (I know this because I have a token to that effect).
Although Dick Bueschel was a great researcher of machines, he specialized more in the various models made, than the history of the people behind those companies that made them, the most noted researcher into the family background of the various companies is without a doubt Nic Costa, especially in the European sector of the industry, I know this for a fact because I was around during the time that Nic was doing his research, and knew it to be factual because as a boy I was taken to meet most of the people who owned the European companies that Nic was writing about.
Most of my information regarding the Caille Brothers was in fact taken from some of the articles that Nic Costa wrote more than 35 years ago.
Also the most noted authorities on the French section of the industry is Jean-Claude Beudot who wrote a great book called Arcadia, Bernard De Witt a Paris coin machine dealer that was responsible for finding a cache of brand new Watling Rol-A-Tops and Pace models that was confiscated by the French customs in 1933 in Marseilles, Also another reason why Caille would not have had a factory in France was that The French government banned slot machine altogether on December 27th, 1914 that along with the German name of Caille that also did not go down well with the French who was at war with Germany at that time.
Find attached pictures of the Caille models taken from the Jean-Claude Beudot Arcadia book.
Freddy Bailey
The Official British Coin Machine Historian