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I am looking for some suggestions on painting the coins on a coin front Rol A Top. I have the old paint striped off and the casting looks pretty good. I was going to experiment with some gold tinted clear lacquer paint and some gold tinted polyurethane paint? Thought I would have painters supply fill me a couple of rattle cans to play with. Any other suggestions?
I am also looking for a color picture of just what the original Rol A Top Coin Front painted machine looked like? I want to make this machine as original as I possibly can. All I can find is B&W pictures and the stuff on eBay i all over the place with chrome and brass plating.
Thanks

If you want it as close to original as possible DO NOT paint the coins. They were originally just polished aluminum, these machines were never plated except the handles or the early coin acceptors. The castings were polished along the edges also paint was limited to the flat areas.

Here are some pictures of an unrestored original machine. Watling never varied from this color scheme for the coin front. All coin fronts were painted like this. Coins were always painted and not left bare aluminum. They were painted with a tinted lacquer, same for the Bird of Paradise. The cast in horn, which you don't have, was always sprayed with the tinted lacquer. The removable horns were chrome plated but some machines had the horn just polished, usually found on Bird of Paradise machines. You are going about it the correct way, test it on the casting and if not the way you want, just wash it off with lacquer thinner and try again. It may take a little practice to get the hang of spraying the coins and finding the correct color. The mistake most people make is putting the lacquer on too heavy. The lacquer must be clear with no solids. It works the same way as candy color. A silver undercoat with a clear tinted top coat. In this case, the polished casting takes the place of the silver undercoat. Watling originally used masks to paint the castings and hold back areas already painted sections.

Good luck,

Watlingboy

Thanks again for all the advise. I'll post some pictures when I have it finished.

I too just picked up a nice original quarter Rol-A-Top with the only negative being the touch-up black paint in select areas (why do folks or clubs do that? - know the history of this machine and it came out of an old club in Ohio). Note the horn and coins have the original tinted lacquer gold as watlingboy explains for this earlier model. I will touch up the black paint back to yellow but leave everything else just as is. Or maybe sell as is because this is an extremely nice playing Rol-A-Top.

I would add that polished coins look MUCH better than the original paint though. Here are pictures of my first Rol-A-Top ( back in the early collecting days when the fun was restoring all the machines that you found). Here is before and after - pictures don't do full credit but it remains the best looking of all of my Rol-A-Tops. But not original. Good luck on your project - those castings are very nicely stripped.

Flip

I think that most folks think of our coins as being silver or silver in tone, so the polished aluminum looks like the natural coins. But I still prefer the original way the machine was produced, preserving the originality of the classic machine is a priority to me. Its just the way I feel ... if your going to re sell the machine and represent it as original, it should be that . If not, tell it like it is. Now who has a source for a green wrinkle paint for a Vest Pocket. I have one with a serial # less than 1000 and want it to be the way it was, not the gold and silver or pewter hammer colors as the later ones were, but the original wrinkle green paint. Help me with this.....
dave F

I'm going for the gold. I like the look much better also. It will just take some practice. Found a 5 ¢ poinsettia yesterday. I do like the find almost as much as the hunt almost as much as working on the machines. I'm going to go look at two more (old machines) today. Got a call, an elderly lady who's husband pulled them out of a bar sometime in the 50's. Thanks for the great pictures and all of the advise. This is a great forum with lots of very helpful people.