watling rol a tor skill stop question

[clubconsoles]

Hi all
I have an early Rol a tor bird that runs on 10c although it was probably a converted french machine as it has the twin vendors, GA and the skill stops.
My question applies to the latter,.
They work fine but i have made them in operable by taking the springs off the indexing arms.
This is because if a winning combination drops in you can hold all three skill stop buttons down and get the payout again on each subsequent game and empty the machine!
If you look at the picture where i have marked the white arrow, it looks as if this bar has been cut as it previously used to engage with something to prevent players from holding down skill stops on a winning combination at the start of each game!

I have searched e bay and all over the internet for pics of the Watling skill stop mechanism and none seem as complete as mine with all i have seen missing this "pull down" linkage?
Could i be in luck as the GA mech and the vendor rod are all there?
Any help appreciated and a pic of a complete RAT skill stop set up would make my day!

Thanks Guys

[gsx11r]

Hi
Your are lucky !
It s the "compulsory skill' system ! And your is complet !no missing parts , all is perfect !
Just remove the spring for active this option , and you will see how this work !
I will try to post some photos ASAP .
For info , the french rol a top was convert in 25ç , never in 10ç ( Coin size !)
And never see the complusory skill in France !!
Stephane

[clubconsoles]

Hi Stephane
Many thanks for the feedback.
I am not sure which spring you mean?
A picture would be very helpful!
you say my mechanism is complete, that is good news, are you in France/

Many Thanks, nigel

[gsx11r]

Yeap , Im French and so sorry for my poor English !!!
I will try to make my best !
This is a complete Rol a top Mech :

With the spring , no “compulsory skill”:

Remove the spring ,and now you have the option “compulsory skill” and now your slot is open for the law who ask that the slot must to a be a skill game and not a game of chance !

The cycle is stopped after the 3th Clic ! With just this poor little axe !

Just push the skill stop button , and now the mech is free and you can have the 4th and 5th Clic ,and your money because you have it with skill and not via your chance !!

But I m sure that Watlingboy will make better than my poor English !! Sorry again
Stephane

[clubconsoles]

Hi Stephane
There is nothing wrong with your English, you have explained it perfectly.
The pictures are very helpful also!!
I am so grateful for your help.
I always assumed it was french as it had the Skill Stops, G Award and Vendors.
I have never seen a US RAT with all these options together?

So if you have never seen this in France, where did you get the Pictures from?
Any collectors on here throw any light on this "compulsory skill " feature??

[gsx11r]

Hummmm , I think that yours come from England !!
If it’s the original Mech ( I’m pretty sure ), in 10ç$(17.8mm) ,the only coin with the same size are the English 6P(19.3) or the French 5ç Franc (17mm) !But never , never, NEVER seen a rol a top in 5çFranc ! Never ! . Always in 1Franc (23mm)
But the strips must have "fortune teller" on it ,and yours don t have, like the French Rol ,and I don t know if that was the same in England !?

The Compulsory skill photos come from one of my Rol !! But this one is a Special Rol!! Just one know in the world, maybe a prototype for the French market, but never distributed!! ,so not a reference for the compulsory skill in France ! I will try to make a post about it one day !!
Mills have made a Compulsory skill on the “Extraordinary” but never seen the Mech ! If you have any info , photos or parts about the mills Compulsory , please , let me know !! I have just a PDF patent (1767603 Dec 8 1927). I know also that the compulsory system was on some Mills in England (in 1P) ! But always missing !!
Stephane

[watlingboy]

Stephane is great, always very helpful and his English is fine. I'll just add a little more information. The purpose of the skill stops was to change the slot machine from a game of chance to a game of skill, just like the side shooter on a RAT. You can stop the reels in any order, all at once or not at all. That arm that you have the white arrow pointing to is the compulsory feature. This part is almost always gone and I'm guessing most people don't even know it exists. What it does is stop the mechanism before it gets to the fifth click which would be the pay slides going back. The 5th click will not take place until a skill stop button is pushed. This allows the reel stop finger lever to finish its travel and allow the 5th click to happen and allow the machine to pay off. The spring that is attached to that arm puts the compulsory feature in or out of play, in other words, connect or disconnect it. Stephane's pictures show this very well. The part you thought was cut off is the part that hits the pin and holds the lever. When this feature is engaged, the machine could only be played as skill game making sure it was always in compliance with the law. Not sure if this feature was available on other manufacturers machines with skill stops or not. Never seen it on anything but a RAT but others may know more if it was. Normally your machine, if made for the American market, would have fortune telling reel strips but the Rol-A-Tor is the one exception to that rule. How about showing some front shots of your machine. Does it have a 10 cent Rol-A-Tor badge or a replacement badge. Also if you look at the back of the brass coin entry on the mech, it will be stamped with the denomination of the coin entry. It will say 25 cent or 10 cent.

Watlingboy

[gsx11r]

Thank you Watlingboy
Hummm , another mystery about the rol A toR !!
For me , a Tor , it’s the First rol with a serial number around 64000 (1935) ,9 visible coins in the escalator, no eject button, a special back bonnet ,a white coin badge And all are with coin front casting .
But all BIRD Rol a toR that I know , it s a standard version ,8 visible coins ,green coin badge And serial around 79000 (1937) ! Why??
So I can not say that is a Tor !! It s just a standard 1937 rol a top with a R on the casting !

Stephane

[clubconsoles]

Stephane & Watlingboy, Thank you so much for your help and Knowledge.

I love this kind of detective stuff.
I took a look at the coin entry part you mentioned and you can see from the pic it is stamped "25 CENT".
You can also see it has had a small pieceadded that is silver soldered to take the smaller Dime coin and a dime tube and slides have been added.
They are the correct watling slides that have the "wishbone " ends.
Also notice the serial i found stamped into the right side beside the cashbox.
My question is - what does serial 77872 tell us?
Thanks Guys

Nigel

[watlingboy]

So Clubconsoles, it appears you do have a RAT made for the French market and somewhere in its life, someone changed it over to dime play. Looks like they changed everything correctly because it works and pays properly.

Stephane,

You are correct with what you said about the early Rol-A-Tors but towards the end of the Rol-A-Tor life, Watling was already starting to switch to the 1937 style Rol-A-Top. That is why you will
find late Rol-A-Tors that have the blue and white denomination badge, pin on top of the back bonnet instead of a hole and a coin reject button.

Here's why
I think you see the high serial number Bird Rol-A-Tors. First you have to believe what is printed in The Dan Post book, "Watling Operator's Companion." They say that he Bird of Paradise was supposed to be the first design introduced by Watling for the Rol-A-Tor but one of the family members, Bill whose name appears on the coin front design patent, objected to the Bird casting and wanted to have a coin design. Tom Watling loved cigars and was always giving them to friends, the cigar bands and boxes always had clusters of gold coins on them and he thought a flowing coin design made more sense. He eventually convinced the rest of the family and the coin front design was introduced on the Rol-A-Tor and the Bird was shelved for later production. Later, sometime in 1937, they decided to bring out the Bird of Paradise , probably testing the waters with the Rol-A-Tor castings. It was received well so they made new patterns as they did with coin fronts to have the removable horn. Watling went to the removable horn so they didn't have to keep the volume of casting on hand for all the different denominations on hand. All they needed was removable horns or coin entries in in every denominations and could put them on any castings. So you are absolutely correct, the only thing that the Rol-A-Top Bird has in common with the early Rol-A-Tor is the top casting.

Watlingboy