HUH?? Sega with Mills on the front?????

[Rick B]

Is this rare? Did Mills make this machine before Sega did? What is it honestly? Rick B

[mechanic]

MILLS DID NOT MAKE THIS STYLE CABINET! IT'S A SEGA WITH SOME MILLS TRIM PUT ON IT. MILLS HI-TOPS WITH SEGA TRIM WAS DONE BY SEGA.

[mechanic]

MILLS DID NOT MAKE THIS STYLE CABINET! IT'S A SEGA WITH SOME MILLS TRIM PUT ON IT. MILLS HI-TOPS WITH SEGA TRIM WAS DONE BY SEGA.

[SLOT DYNASTY]

Rick:
These late model Sega Bell cases were built in Japan, mainly for the Foreign market, and used Mills mechanisms.
There were several changes in the case trim over the years. The one shown here, with the Mills nameplate, is legit.
Some had the Mills name engraved in script, and others had the Sega name engraved in script. There was even a
non-escalator model, with a Mills nameplate were the escalator window would be, and also had the Mills script
below. I bought several Sega models, and re-coined U.S., for resale, years ago. They are generally good playing
machines, with very little issues. There was a multitude of different model names on the lower casting. I still have
one mty case left over, with the Sega script, and is a "Bonus Star" model, as well as a "Imperial Crown" mty case, if
anyone is interested. Both have all the trim & glass, just no mech.
Bill

[Rick B]

Thank you Bill. The other thing that bothers me about this machine is the quarters are staked right next to each other instead of having a gap in the top glass.

Do you have any parts for the Segas? Looking for a PayBak Star Marquee and the Jackpot in red in the jackpot coin window . Rick B

[aristocrat]

yes, the coins are likely just stuck to the reverse of the glass

& the normal coins move across escalator has been replaced

with a simpler rolldown version behind coins on the glass.


in the UK, i have seen a number of mills badged machines in

this style of cabinet and they always had the flat chrome trim

running down the cabinet edges as your machine, however,they

were badged in the style shown in the pix below.


who "made" or "revamped" or"cloned" these machines im not sure.

i have heard many contradictory stories over the years,


there is also a same style cabinet that the edges are not flat chrome

like these, or the ribbed chrome as seen on the sega embossed ones

but have a rubber insert and these have castings not reverse sega

embossed but "reno" reverse embossed, again who was responsible.


the bel air reverse embossed non visible jackpot was another variant

i seem to remember freddy bailey explaining some of this conundrum

a while back, others i am sure will have fuller explanations

[Anglobritish]

Service Games (Parts Price List) -1.jpg[/attachment]

Guy's,
Believe me, nobody knows more about the Sega models than I do, you may think that is a major statement, but I bought my first Sega Diamond Star in 1960, at that time my late friend Marty Bromley (Founder of SErvice GAmes Ltd, SEGA) had arrived in the U.K. at that time the Sega Bell was being assembled in the Gunter Wulff factory in Berlin, Germany.

In 1958 Service Games (Nevada) Inc, was the official distributor of what was left of the Mills dynasty, Tony Mills (the last of the Mills family to run the business) was living in Nevada,and had previously sold the tooling of the Mills Novelty company to Marty, also at that time Service Games (Nevada) Inc, was supplying all of the replacement parts for any of the machines previously made by the Mills Bell-O-Matic Corporation.

If you look closely at the attachments, you will see that the flyers are stamped with the Service Games (Japan) Inc, this company was the first company building the Sega games in Japan, Marty placed his most trusted man Dick Stewart as President of Service Games in Japan, along with Ray Lemaire who was later sent to Germany to build the Sega games in the Gunter Wulff factory.

Marty was one of my closest friends living in London from 1959-2008 when he died suddenly in Switzerland after a short meeting with his trusted partner Dick Stewart, Ray Lemaire also died in Switzerland in 2005 while also on a business trip. Out of all of the directors of the original games Ray Lemaire was the only director to keep is 25% interest in Sega after the sale to Gulf Western in 1967.

I am the only person who as the blessing of the daughter of Marty Bromley, to write a book based on his life, she recently quoted in an email to me that "I was the only person alive (Outside of Dick Stewart, who is still alive and living in the South of France) that knew her father better than she did".

In the 1960's copies of Sega models were rampant, and most of you are guessing who made what models, non of them was made by either Sega or Mills, they were cabinets that were made by inderpendent operators, the run down escalator was developed by a British distributor/Operator by the name of Morrie Shefras. If you read the attached notes from the Service Games service manual, you will see that as operators they corrected many of the features that stopped the cheating of the Sega models.

Enjoy the history.

Freddy Bailey

[marsonion]

There was a rock/pop band in the early 1970s called T.Rex which was wildly popular in the UK but only managed one top-ten hit in the USA: "Get it on (bang a gong)." I heard it again lately on the radio: Marc Bolan describes the "dirty and sweet" girl as having a "diamond star halo." As an adolescent back-when, I interpreted this as merely a random string of evocative words, but nowadays I believe he was alluding to the glow of an arcade slot machine...

[Rick B]

Freddy, I do not own this machine and was thinking of buying it. Honestly what is a good value for it? I am starting to think it may be worth $500.00 to $700.00 tops. Am I wrong? Thanks. RIck B

[Anglobritish]

Hi,
In my opinion this machine as very little value, even the original Sega machines do not command a lot of money, most collectors are begining to realize that this type of machine is not very rare, and with the market being so soft, only the rarest of the rare are commanding any big money.

If you buy these odd ball machines how are you going to value them in the future, although I like the cabinet style, of the Sega machines, they was never really accepted, especially by the casino's, in the early 1960's when the Sega machines reached their height of success in the U.K. Jennings introduced their "Governor model, and most clubs where these machines were legal used a Jennings Governor and a Bally Gold Cup upright model, then in 1963 Bally introduced their Money Honey and totally took over every location in the U.K.

The strength of Sega was not in the quality of their machines, but in their ability to corrupt the U.S Military and install more than 16,000 machines in the U.S Military Bases Worldwide, Marty Bromley gave the U.S Military more than $100,000.000 for their share from the collections of machines installed on the bases in Vietnam in 1967 alone, in 1980 investigators claimed that Marty was one of the richest men in the World.

With the advent of Ebay and such, more people became aware of the value of old slot machines, and many rare pieces came on the market for the first time, sadly the big collectors have got most of the rarest machines in their collection, and the younger generation seem less interested in the collecting of mechanical slot machines.

IF I were offered the machine in question, I would not be interested at any price, it as no value.

Freddy Bailey