Horsehead Bonus Question.

[oldslotman]

Has anyone come across Horsehead Bonus Machines with a cast aluminum upper casting and a cast iron lower casting and back bonnet? No serial number on upper castings.

[watlingboy]

They have shown up. Using up the last of the aluminum castings and switching over to cast iron.

Watlingboy

[mechanic]

The cast iron castings were made during WW2 as aluminum was a war material. Mills went into full war production at that time and did not make machines while doing government work. The machines produced at that time using some left over aluminum castings combined with cast iron and later all cast iron was produced by Baker Novelty Co.. Baker had a distinctive look to their machines, while they were made from original Mills molds the machines were painted then slathered with the well known crystal sprinkles that made the machines sparkle in the light. Unfortunately most of the machines eventually made their way back to Mills after the war and were repatriated I guess you'd call it by removing the Baker decals and putting the Mills decals on. While making the machines look as they were all made by Mills, they left the paint and sparkle scheme alone. Over the last 40 yrs I have seen 2 original unmolested Bakers with their decals intact. One of them resides somewhere in FL the other IDK lost track long ago.