2 more issues of the extremely rare Coin Journals we purchased have been scanned by Detchibe. These take a lot longer to scan because they are being done non-destructively on an edge scanner, so please be patient as they trickle forth over the next year or more.
This
blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific attempts to eliminate
trans people from society. Trans people have always existed, in every
society, but the administration has embraced a moral panic, declared a
war against reality, and says that trans people can no longer be allowed
to exist. This includes making their healthcare illegal, censoring
books and school curriculum from university level down to elementary
school, banning trans people from bathrooms, and declaring trans
existence to be child abuse.
This blog stands in solidarity with
all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has
declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.
The USA is
disappearing random brown people off the streets via unidentified masked gestapo and shipping them off to concentration camps and notorious foreign
prisons, all with no due process. The world witnessed ICE execute a mother and then lie about what we saw. Solidarity for all who are in the gaze
of this American Nazism terror campaign against its own people.
I am back with a similar ask. I am looking for donations to help win these two auctions of extremely rare Sega and Taito price lists. Both of these auctions end on January 12th so we have a little bit of time to spread this around and shake that cup.
These will all be scanned at high res and shared openly on the Internet Archive.
This auction includes Taito price lists from 1975-03 and 1987-05.
Current Tally
We are currently at ¥69,945. That is ¥15,600 from my friend Flyercade and ¥15,000 from me. + $25 USD (~¥3900) from JeffC, thank you! + $50 USD (~¥7800) from Jason H, thank you! + ¥27645 from Jonny, thank you!
I think we will need at least ¥64,000 to win these. I'd ideally like even higher bids, and any excess funds can be rolled into the next purchases.
What will these sell for?
It is hard to predict how high these will go, but my estimate is that the Sega lot will sell for 50,000 to 60,000 yen. Let's look to prior auctions for guidance.
It is always exciting to find any representation of Japanese arcades from before the 1960s! Here we have a carnival with a ball toss game where you try and hit a classical oni, and a shooting gallery that including both a spinning platform and balloon shooting.
This
blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific attempts to eliminate
trans people from society. Trans people have always existed, in every
society, but the administration has embraced a moral panic, declared a
war against reality, and says that trans people can no longer be allowed
to exist. This includes making their healthcare illegal, censoring
books and school curriculum from university level down to elementary
school, banning trans people from bathrooms, and declaring trans
existence to be child abuse.
This blog stands in solidarity with
all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has
declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.
The USA is
disappearing random brown people off the streets via unidentified masked
men and shipping them off to concentration camps and notorious foreign
prisons, all with no due process. Solidarity for all who are in the gaze
of this American Nazism terror campaign against its own people.
And we are BACK with more arcade + pinball videos!
Prior video posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and entry 5 onward has a link to one of these ZIP files of movie clips. Clips were trimmed by tweakbod, with a few guest contributions and a few archived YT rips.
In this collection we have:
1928 - 十字路 (Jūjiro aka Crossroads) shooting gallery scene 1939 - Dangerous Dan McFoo pinball scenes 1946 - Dick Tracy Vs. Cueball pinball scenes 1956 - Rock, Pretty Baby pinball scene 1956 - You Cant Run Away From It coin-op scenes 1958 - Les Tricheurs (aka The Cheaters) pinball scene 1960 - La Vérité (aka The Truth) pinball scene 1960 - The Fugitive Kind pinball scene 1962 - Lonely Are the Brave pinball scene 1965 - Synanon coin-op scene 1965 - Trials of O'Brien S01E10 Charlie Has All The Luck [from Kate Lynch] pinball scenes 1965 - 意気に感ず (Iki ni kanzu aka I am not impressed) arcade scenes 1967 - Casino Royale slot machine scene 1967 - Poor Cow amsuement park & coin-op scene 1971 - Dollars pinball scenes 1973 - Il boss (aka Wipeout! aka The Boss) pinball scenes 1973 - The Girl Most Likely To... pinball scenes 1973 - macht Flippern frei？ (Dokumentation 1973) [OVQyBAexZdY] 1974 - The Klansman pinball scene 1975 - The Giant Spider Invasion pinball scenes 1975 - 大劫案 (Da jie an aka The Big Holdup) pinball scene 1976 - Taxi Driver marquees of Fascination and Playland scene 1977 - Sega Center offers state of the art video games in 1977 [LwfeOu0QsGk] 1979 - Hot Stuff pinball scenes 1979 - Meteor pinball scene 1979 - Rock 'n Roll High School pinball scene 1983 - Slayground shooting gallery scene 1983 - Surprise Party pinball scenes 1984 - Reckless bowling alley scene 1984 - Surf II arcade scene 1985 - Stick pinball scene 1985 - The Boys Next Door arcade scene 1987 - Over The Top arcade scene 1987 - Promised Land coin-op scenes 1990 - Havana pinball scene 1992 - Sega's Plan for World Domination： The Fantasy Factory [-hoGyKI5J7k] 1995 - 紅番區 (Hong fan qu aka Rumble in the Bronx) pinball scene 1997 - 電磁戦隊メガレンジャー (Denji Sentai Megaranger) E01 arcade scene 1998 - The General arcade scene 2001 - Donnie Darko arcade scene 2002 - Lilja 4-Ever arcade scene 2005 - Bad News Bears pinball scene 2005 - Be Cool pinball scene 2006 - Starter For 10 arcade scenes 2008 - August pinball scenes 2011 - Le Havre pinball scenes
Ian / Sparky gives some good pinball repair tips, including removing paint off a pinball cabinet...
and repairing the bottom of pinball machines...
Pindude152 delivers some holiday ASMR with bingo pinball noises
Supershotrollerrob showcases an extremely rare 1973 Lucky Strike by Crompton
And a game showcase including 2 different UK games called Bingo Pinball Shenanigans peeps bought a bunch of NIB arcade games from the 1970s and it's great to see the unboxings.
1974 Hesitation
1976 Ricochet cocktail
1973 Monte Carlo
A recent visit to the Soviet arcade game museum in St. Petersburg, Russia
Even more footage from a wonderful vintage arcade in Japan, courtesy of Onitama-san
A great lecture from Pin Expo 2025, recorded by Pinball News: 1930s Pinball Machines: Mechanical to Electrical No Flip Pinball gives a tour of the prewar booth from Pin Expo
And for slot machine fans, these Elephant Auction preview videos are a great way to browse
This
blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific attempts to eliminate
trans people from society. Trans people have always existed, in every
society, but the administration has embraced a moral panic, declared a
war against reality, and says that trans people can no longer be allowed
to exist. This includes making their healthcare illegal, censoring
books and school curriculum from university level down to elementary
school, banning trans people from bathrooms, and declaring trans
existence to be child abuse.
This blog stands in solidarity with
all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has
declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.
The USA is
disappearing random brown people off the streets via unidentified masked
men and shipping them off to concentration camps and notorious foreign
prisons, all with no due process. Solidarity for all who are in the gaze
of this American Nazism terror campaign against its own people.
I purchased this beautiful little vending machine from Japan. I was unable to find much information about it, but I knew that it looks really cool and would make a great decorator piece at the very minimum.
auction photograph
おもしろい 点取占い (Interesting Score Fortune Telling) arrived in Canada, safe and sound
It dispenses 35 mm capsules and it came with a number of 35mm wooden balls instead. The balls are not marked in any capacity, so I think they were just put in for fun. Opening up the machine, I did find two plastic capsules, one of which had a fortune inside. So while this looks like an early gashapon machine, it was made to dispense the capsules with paper fortunes inside.
I was very nervous about shipping it because it has a suspended glass plate in the center where the label is. I am grateful that it arrived in one piece.
the one complete capsule that was inside
each fortune has a number designating how many "points"it is worth. So getting it '2' is not great
There was a single ¥50 piece jammed into part of the coin slot. The coin slot width is perfect for the ¥50 piece, so I assume that is the correct denomination. It is also possible that it used a custom token of similar dimensions.
¥50 is 21mm diameter ¥10 coins are 23.5 mm and do not fit.
According to the 点取占い wikipedia article: score/point fortunetelling goes back to 1935 in Osaka. Production stopped during the war, but they began making them again in 1963, finally ceasing production in 2017.
I was given this info by @michelintongs... "the ST mark (ST for Safety Toy, 玩具安全マーク) is given by the the Japan Toy Association (日本玩具協会). This association was created in 1967."
More information on point fortune telling: (except for the first one, these are all Internet archive links)
Let's see if we can find a minimum date for this machine based on the calculator shown. Electric calculators were a hot new field in the 60s and 70s. Features that are shown on the illustration must have been based on real calculators.
This image is from the Twitter image above, but is a detailed version of the image inside the machine.
The calculator illustration is a mishmash of a few designs of the era, but there are some obvious strong influences.
Those closest model I have found so far is the 1969 Casio AL-1200:
If you look closely on the left, you will see a toggle switch that says "cut 5/4", which is reflected in the illustration as the "5/4" light.
It has a button that has both the equal and + on it, like the illustration, and a "KC" button while the illustration has a "CK" button.
Another influence might be the Facit 1121, which has the digit numbers listed under the nixie tube displays, similar to what we see in the illustration.
I am assuming that the calculator design was done early 1970s, but I am unsure if that means this machine was from the early 1970s. There is still a chance this dispenser is from the 1960s, but I am sceptical that it came out before the Casio AL-1200. The next thing to investigate would be: when would ¥50 be an appropriate price for a score fortune-telling dispenser?
There is not a lot to go on here because I have never seen another score fortune-telling dispenser before. Looking at undated images of old gashapon dispensers I see some for ¥30, some at ¥100, but none at ¥50. (so far)
Gashapon (ガシャポン) wasn't a trademarked thing from Bandai until 1977. But 12 years earlier in 1965 is when Ryuzo Shigeta (重田 龍三) imported American gumball machines into Japan to sell capsules with prizes inside. (source is this reference-packed article on Sega Retro on Konno Sangyo)
It appears that Shigeta Ryuzo even has a webpage! This webpage is being blocked by The Internet Archive so I will ensure all of the pages are archived: Main, 1, 2, 2b, 3, 4, 4b, 5, 5b, 6, 7. [some links from the main page link to the same HTML]
The machine itself is a bit of a puzzle to me, because it is quite
well-built but does not feel like a commercial machine that a vending
machine company would sell.
at the top right of the machine is a small latch that is closed by a single small screw.
opening this gives us access to a metal pin we can pull out.
Removing this pin allows the front window frame of the machine to come off.
The different kind of wood with a knob goes in betrays a potentially severe repair. I have not opened up this part, but I think this is someone's attempts to get it working when parts were missing. I certainly applaud the effort! It is not visible to the user, so the machine still has a commanding presence despite the repairs.
Just above the wood you can see two metal circles with poles extending upward. One of these poles was missing when I purchased it, but I was relieved to find it inside the machine. These are not secured in, they are only held in by their own weight. As you turn the knob one rises up to pause the second ball, and the other goes down to allow the front ball to release.
this is what I found when I opened the back side.
On the back we can see a lever connecting the coin mechanism and the knob. This is a very simple mechanism based on the weight of the coin releasing the cogs of the gear. The gear here is handcarved wood, and I think a DIY replacement to whatever was there before. At the bottom of that inner chamber you can see an impression of screw holes where something else might have attached. Inside the main area of the machine, you can see what looks like the discolouration and screw holes of perhaps a plaque that was there.
I will explore the mechanics of this machine a bit more with a friend who has better eyes than I do. I primarily purchased this for the beautiful ball track and wooden case. Having some contextual history is just icing on the cake. And if there's a chance we can get it working smoothly, all the better! I think there is a chance that some parts, like the gear, might need to get fabricated again.
Here is a lottery dispenser machine from the 1973 yearbook, which was published late 1972. I don't know if this is a fortune-telling dispenser, or a dispenser of lottery tickets, but it does give a strong contrast to the wood + brass design style of the score fortune-telling vendor.
In conclusion I think this is an intriguing piece because it connects prewar score fortune-telling to emergent gacha culture. I believe this machine is from the early 1970s and I have no idea who made it. I do not think it was made by a commercial vending machine company because the coin mech is so basic. It was probably made by a toy company as a way to sell fortunes slips, but I am unsure if it is something that would be commissioned by the store itself. It feels too fancy to be a project kit or a one-off home project.
I do not know if I will keep this long-term, or try and find a more appropriate home for it. If you have any more information on this, or are particularly interested in it, please get in touch. (thetastates@gmail.com)
This
blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific attempts to eliminate
trans people from society. Trans people have always existed, in every
society, but the administration has embraced a moral panic, declared a
war against reality, and says that trans people can no longer be allowed
to exist. This includes making their healthcare illegal, censoring
books and school curriculum from university level down to elementary
school, banning trans people from bathrooms, and declaring trans
existence to be child abuse.
This blog stands in solidarity with
all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has
declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.
The USA is
disappearing random brown people off the streets via unidentified masked
men and shipping them off to concentration camps and notorious foreign
prisons, all with no due process. Solidarity for all who are in the gaze
of this American Nazism terror campaign against its own people.
This
blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific attempts to eliminate
trans people from society. Trans people have always existed, in every
society, but the administration has embraced a moral panic, declared a
war against reality, and says that trans people can no longer be allowed
to exist. This includes making their healthcare illegal, censoring
books and school curriculum from university level down to elementary
school, banning trans people from bathrooms, and declaring trans
existence to be child abuse.
This blog stands in solidarity with
all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has
declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.
The USA is
disappearing random brown people off the streets via unidentified masked
men and shipping them off to concentration camps and notorious foreign
prisons, all with no due process. Solidarity for all who are in the gaze
of this American Nazism terror campaign against its own people.
