Console Rol-A-Tops

[markus]

I am interested in buying an ALL ORIGINAL console Rol-A-Top. How to be sure it is really original and not a retro?

[Dave]

I have a couple original Rol-A-Tops in consoles. Both are cherry fronts. One is a dime and the other is a quarter. I found the dime machine in a lady's attic in Montana a long time ago. Go to http://www.coinopcollectorforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11 to read the story behind it.

The console Rol-A-Top was sold in two varieties. With and without a bottom stand. Both of mine are without the stand. They were Console "Counter Top" models.

You do need to be careful when buying console Rol-A-Top as there are not many around. Many years ago at least one person took the console and made a lot of copies so people could put their counter top Rol-A-Top in in.

I have a friend that did that because he wanted one really bad and I wasn't willing to sell mine (just had the dime one at the time) and he didn't care if the console itself was a reproduction. I am going to visit him later this week and I will ask him if I can take photos to point out the differences. If he allows it I will update this post.

Here are photos of my two machines

Anyway, there are three ways to tell if the console top is original.

The easiest way is to look at the wood under the coin tray. It should be thicker than the typical base of a Rol-A-Top, not painted, and rounded.

Here are close-ups of my two machines

Now here is a regular Cherry Front. Notice the difference in the bases.

Obviously the bases are different and if you know what to look for you will see that if the regular Cherry Front were put in a console then it would be obvious.

The second way to tell is that every original console base that I have ever seen has a serial number stamped in it. All of the ones that I have ever heard of are under 100. My dime machine is serial #7 and the quarter machine is serial number 31. I know a collector in California and his original console also have numbers stamped in them. To my knowledge, all the original console Rol-A-Top have a number that is below 100. This leads me to believe that they are really scarce.

The machine in the console will still have a serial number that will fall in line with the rest of the Watling line. The serial number should be on a red & white sticker on the right inside of the machine. Here is the sticker on my quarter machine.

My dime machine came out of Montana and the quarter machine came out of Nebraska.

Here is a closeup of the serial number that is stamped in my quarter console.

The third way to tell is to look at the wood sides of the machine. Watling never bothered to finish the sides or route them like they did on the normal Rol-A-Top. There was no need since the machine was inside a console and not visible. They simply painted the visible edges black.

There are also some other subtle things to look for but that is a little harder to describe.

Finally, here is a copy of an original Watling Flyer talking about the Console Rol-A-Top. As you can see, people could order them as just the top console or with a matching bottom.

If you look at the machine in the flyer you will see the wood under the coin tray matches mine in the photos. The wood is thicker and rounded.

I have heard that Watling would retrofit your existing machine into a console. If they did that then I assume it would still have finished sides and the smaller wood under the coin tray since it would be silly (and expensive) for Watling to replace the sides and the base. The resulting machine would be a retro machine (in my opinion) and not an original since the machine that ended up in the stand did not start its life in the console. However, that is just my opinion.

If anyone else has more information or thoughts on this then please post.

[watlingboy]

As Dave stated, the console machine coin tray base is made of maple and has rounded corners. The sides are maple or also instead of oak. I have only ever seen 1 that had a coin front machine and that was a 50 cent machine. I'm sure more coin fronts exist but that's all I have ever seen. The others have been Cherry Fronts and Birds with most being Cherry fronts. I too have never seen a serial stamped in the wood that was 3 digits. I'm guessing they did pull your castings of and retro fit them to the new cabinet if you sent it in to have that done because the base on the console is 1 1/8" thick whereas the regular Rol-A-Top cabinet is 1" thick. The top casting will hit the outside wood cabinet if that thicker base is not there. That doesn't exclude the possibility for a slightly different design to allow for the thinner base on the retro fit jobs.

Watlingboy

[Dave]

.....

I'm guessing they did pull your castings of and retro fit them to the new cabinet if you sent it in to have that done because the base on the console is 1 1/8" thick whereas the regular Rol-A-Top cabinet is 1" thick. The top casting will hit the outside wood cabinet if that thicker base is not there. That doesn't exclude the possibility for a slightly different design to allow for the thinner base on the retro fit jobs.

Watlingboy

I was guessing that the factory would just use a shim if they were doing a retro fit job. Wouldn't that save a lot of time?

Any idea that if the factory did use 1 1/8" base if they would use the same sides that were on the machine or would they stick on unfinished sides as well?

As long as we are conjecturing would the retro machine maintain the same serial number or would it get a new serial number?

Finally, were the reproduction console tops that were made years ago designed to accommodate the thinner bases? When I go to my friends house in a couple of days I will look closely to see if it was shimmed up so that it would fit in the reproduction cabinet.

Finally, I am kind of surprised that Watling didn't design the console cabinets to just use regular counter top Rol-A-Tops. Seems like that would have been easier as it wouldn't have required changes to the Rol-A-Top assembly line. I am glad they didn't because it makes it much easier to identity the original Watlings from the retros.

Dave

[markus]

Thanks everyone for the info. It is a great forum!