Rare amusement treasures go to auction

A remarkable collection of antique seaside amusement arcade machines – saved when they were about to be scrapped or smashed up half a century ago - is predicted to make thousands when it goes under the hammer in an auction in Louth next week
By Dianne Tuckett
Published 7th Mar 2024, 12:07 GMT
James Taylor with the 1931 ‘Green Ray Television’ machine. Image: TaylorsJames Taylor with the 1931 ‘Green Ray Television’ machine. Image: Taylors
James Taylor with the 1931 ‘Green Ray Television’ machine. Image: Taylors

Mostly picked up for next to nothing – in some cases actually for nothing, the collection includes machines that are now so rare that just a handful are known to survive anywhere in the in the world.

James Laverack of auctioneers John Taylors said: “The collection was started back in the early 1970s when a local businessman was offered a couple of old machines that had been in storage for years. Thinking he would donate them to a charity group, he paid £20 for the pair and then found he had inadvertently become an antique slot machine owner when his charity said no thanks. It was the start of what would turn into a rescue operation.

“At the time nobody was much interested in these old pre-decimalisation slot machines. Thousands were smashed up, dumped or, if there was enough metal involved, sent off to the scrapyard.”

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Two of the vintage collection. Image: TaylorsTwo of the vintage collection. Image: Taylors
Two of the vintage collection. Image: Taylors

One of the most valuable entries in the auction - a 1931 ‘Green Ray Television’ machine, an amusement that claims to be able to read your mind using

‘television rays’ – was given to the collection for nothing. It is today one of the rarest antique slot machines in the world. Less than a dozen are known to survive.

Equally rare is Marathon Cycle Race, a game in which two players spin wheels to race cyclists round a track. The winner gets their penny back. There are

said to be less than ten known examples of this machine that was made at the Islington factory of Charles Ahrens in 1930.

The Marathon machine. Image: TaylorsThe Marathon machine. Image: Taylors
The Marathon machine. Image: Taylors

The auction includes a number of the amusement machines made by William Bryans, the Rolls Royce-trained engineer, who has been described as the ‘inventive genius’ of the pre-war British slot machine industry. Those include an example of his ‘Payramid’, regarded by many collectors as ‘the greatest slot machine game ever invented’.

Another of the star lots is ‘The Gypsy’, a penny-in-the slot ‘fortune-telling’ machine made in 1935 by the Adelphi Manufacturing Company of the Strand in

London. Not quite as off-the-chart-rare as the Green Ray Television, but still expected to attract serious collector interest at the auction.

James said: “Almost all of the 25 machines in the collection date back to the 1930s and most of them spent their working lives in seaside amusement arcades along the East Coast. Pre-sale estimates for individual amusements range from £200 to £3,000. We think the collection as a whole could make as much as £16,000.”

The auction catalogue is available on the firm’s website (www.johntaylors.com). The viewing sessions at the Eastgate Saleroom in Louth take place on Sunday March 10 and Monday March 11, from 1pm to 3pm. The auction starts at 10am on Tuesday March 12 and is to be webcast live.