Could this be a Fey?

[Dave]

I had a friend over a few weeks ago who is much more knowledgable on older slots than I am.

He was looking at my machines and when he saw my "Mills" Gum Vendor he stopped in his tracks.

He said you realize this is not a Mills machine don't you? I said, what do you mean?

He said this is a Fey revamp of a Mills Gum Vendor.

I said I always wondered why the Mills was not part of the casting. He said Fey took it off and if you look at the reel strips and award card you will see Mills has been covered up.

We looked closely and holy crap, he was right

He asked me who restored it. I said I had no idea. This is how I bought it back in 1997 at the Arrington slot machine "Sale of the Century".

He said whoever restored it had no idea it was a Fey and that is why they painted in the word Mills on the casting (next to Gum Vendor). He said I should remove that.

He said you see those three cast iron notches in the bottom casting? Those are classic Fey and you won't see those on a Mills gum Vendor.

I asked him how sure he was of this and he said he was very sure.

I have a photo of another Collectors Mills Gum Vendor (which has Mills in the casting) and sure enough those three notches are not there.

In the spring 1992 edition of the Coin Slot is a machine just like mine. I looked closely at the award card and it appears all references to Mills has been removed. There is no article about it but they do say who the owner is and the owner is a current COCA member so I am going to give him a call in the next day or so.

Below is a picture of mine and also the one in the Coin Slot.

Here is a photo of a Mills Gum Vendor. Look at the bottom casting.

So what do you think? Mills or Fey?

[Dave]

I talked to the guy whose machine was on the cover of the Coin Slot magazine.

He didn't know a lot about his machine. He owned it a very short time.

He bought it from a picker at a flea market up in MN back in 1993.

The picker found it in someones basement.

The picker paid $100 and sold it to the guy for $2,400.

The guy in MN then sold it to Frank Z for $7,000 at the Chicago Show. The guy who paid $2,400 for it had a partner so each one made $2,300

Frank sold it later that day for $9,300. So Frank Z made $2,300.

It seemed like everyone who touched that machine made $2,300.

This was back in 1993.

Anyway, he had no idea that it might be a Fey machine. The picture that is in the Coin Slot was taken when the machine was in his pickup at the flea market in MN.

He never noticed that all Mills references on the machine had been removed.

He sent the picture to Dick B. who put it on the cover of the magazine.

[watlingboy]

I have seen one of these with the Fey name on a plate in front. Silver King also did a revamp with their name on it also. The Silver King was untouched and all original. The Fey one was sold at the VCA Johnny Finkler auction a few years ago. I should be easy to track down. Is this one a Fey? Anything is possible. Fey did have a habit of taking off the nice metal strips and putting on his funky paper ones. These have shown up on numerous Fey revamps.

Watlingboy