Stories and pics.

[Goldmine]

Here are a few things I have. The first pic is the Mutoscope pin up girl card dispenser. I am still working on it. I have cleaned up the "guts" of the machine and painted it. I also had glass cut for the front and found a image to put on it (5th pic) I just have the image sitting in there at the moment. I plan on placing it in the middle and having some kind of lettering at the top like Mutoscope card vendor or Get your pin up girl cards here or something. The bottom will say below the image "cards received here" with an arrow pointing down. This is the first thing I have ever worked on and I think it's cool. The lady had 2, I bought one and the other sold on Ebay. I have no idea what the image on the front ever looked like so I'm making my own. I am making this for me so as long as I like it I don't care if it's not as original as it should be. I did like the way the "2cent" and push lever down words looked (all flaking paint and old) so I taped it off worked around it and cleared it with the paint I did. I'm sure most put a new decal on but I liked the "old" look. I still have work to do but it's getting there. Another bonus was receiving about 40 cards with it and 4 of the cards the lady found still in the machine. They are rough looking but cool. I did find one wheat penny in it as well.
The Reese's gumball machine a friend gave me. It was really nasty looking so I took it all part, sanded everything, cleaned the glass, cleaned all the "guts" and painted it in the orange and black. It was a nasty red. Again I made this machine for me so I made what I liked the most REESE'S PIECES! I have decals ordered for it so once they come it will be done. I just cut the front of a box and put it inside at the moment. I did have to get a guy to open it for me and he only charged $9 and that was including the new lock. It took him 15 mins to open because every quarter turn it would lock again.
The machine in the one pic that says "try me" a friend gave me. He owned a vending company. It was really dirty but I cleaned it and filled it with bubbles. The red bubbles have random toys but the blue bubbles have real shark teeth. Every year I go to a beach close by and pick up dozens of them. I always just through them into a jar but figured it would be cool to place them in my machine to display. One day I plan to have all teeth in it and no toys. I set it on my table at a flee market to draw people over and it worked. I put a crazy number on it so no one would buy it. I did have a lot of kids dumping 50 cents in it trying to win one. One kid won on the first try and got a big tooth. He ran over to me and said look I won. I said that's a nice one too and he said yeah it's the biggest one in there. It was nice making some kids day.
The stamp machine was also free from the friend who owned the vending company. He said he bought it at a yard sale real cheap (he said like $5-$10) and he gave it to me because I always help around his house with firewood or other odd ball jobs. I just give him a hand while i'm there hanging out. He feels like he owes me all the time and I say no i'm just giving you a hand. When he found out I liked vending machines and gumball machines he said come over I have some things. He has ten or more of those toy machines, a lot of gumball machines (some 5ft that swirl the gumballs inside) and the stamp machine. He has about 400-500 keys, extra parts, ect. He liked how I did the shark teeth in the one.
I forgot to mention, the Ford gumball machine was from the guy who opened the northwestern candy machine for me. He said I have something in the back you might like I will sell you. He said $15 for it. I gave him $20 since I think he under charged me for opening and replacing the lock. I have no clue what it's worth or if it even works. I bought it and just sat it in my room.
I hope I didn't bore you with all of this. I just joined here the other day, wanted to post some images, and tell some stories.
Any comments (good or bad) are welcomed and any advice is appreciated
Thanks
-Tom

PS If you have some pics to show and stories to go with them I would love to see.

[coppinpr]

Well here is a story about a machine ive just finished restoring that has a small amount of unusual interest.
I bought this silver jubilee slot as a restore project because that is what I like in this hobby,
The machine had an interesting history in that it started life working in the UK for many years until the Uk changed our coins to decimal and the old 6d didn't fit any more, at that time it was exported to Paris France where it continued for many more years using the the old french centiem until that too was fazed out to make way for the euro. Then it was shipped back to the UK and saw service in a private house,getting slowly more and more dilapidated .
I bought it up and totally dismantled it , when I removed the coin try I found 203 old UK 6d coins, 8 french coins and a new Uk half p jammed six deep under the tray, The interesting part i guess is that they must have traveled out to France and back years later undetected by customs, could have been any contraband in that space !! At least it have me plenty of coins to load the now re-born jubilee with.

jub start.JPG (26.32 KiB) Viewed 1938 times

[spfxted]

Whoa! Nice job!