Anyone else remember these 1d slot machines?

[Geoff F]

At this year's local Vintage Machinery Show. A different type of nostalgic machinery with authentic fairground booth; and complete with an operator that looked perfect for the part.



So who else wasted their youth by pushing pennies into these fairground machines?



One of the early 'one armed bandits'.



I don't remember anyone ever winning on this machine.


The paintwork was a bit pale and it was a difficult light with thin cloud, but highlights easily overexposed and I was shooting into the light which gave a very 'flat' image.

I tried to recreate that 'fairground sparkle' by creating a duplicate layer and setting the Blend Mode to Soft Light at 60%, plus a little Curves tweak.

I think this helps but the result is still far from perfect. On reflection, I should have spent more time getting a better original in the camera.

[kevinbythebeach]

intresting,,,i would prefer closer shots though to really see the textures and feel the age...

why are they called 1D?

[Geoff F]

1d. is the old UK symbol for a penny. It comes from the latin words which signified our old currency of L S D Librae Solidi Denarii or pounds shillings pence. Which existed until our currency went digital around the 1970s. That is why the pound symbol is a letter L in a symbolic form.

I reduced the image size to save space as I considered these images to have more general interest than 'photographic merit'.

These machines probably go back to when I was a lad, say 50 years ago but would be based on designs which were possibly 100 years old. I don't know the full history of this type of machinery; but it must be recorded somewhere.


The earlier traditional machines had a mahogany case and the metal work was chrome plated brass. You pulled back the spring loaded plunger and let it go with sufficient force to, hopefully, send a chrome ball whizzing around until it dropped through one of the winning holes. But these were skillfully placed so 90% of the time the ball just disappeared into one of the loser holes.

The skill was to get the release tension just right so the ball went around the guide rails and dropped at a suitable angle into the winning slot.

And, of course, if you won too often the operator stopped you from playing.

The 'one armed bandit' was a slightly later invention and the forerunner of today's high tech gambling machines. The 'fruit machines' with their fruit based symbols probably came here around the 1960s.

These earlier machines had a plywood case and aluminum fittings with a brake wheel which you could press to stop the wheels on the correct numbers but in reality this never made any difference. But you thought that you were doing something useful.