Amusing the Zillion

Up for Auction: Antique Arcade Games and Gambling Wheels

January 13, 2013 by Tricia

1 Cent ‘Smiley’ Clown Skill Game. Victorian Casino Antique Auction, January 19-20, 2013

A plethora of vintage arcade games, slot machines and gambling paraphernalia will be on the auction block next weekend at Victorian Casino Antiques in Las Vegas. Online bidding is also available for the January 19-20 sale. Here are a trio of items that caught our fancy.

“Smiley” the Clown, the first post-World War II arcade game from Chicago’s Pioneer Coin Machine Company, has strong graphic appeal. In addition, it takes a lot of skill to win. Introduced in 1946, the game requires players to maneuver the ball through a circular maze.

5 cent ‘Play Football’ Arcade Game, circa 1924. Victorian Casino Antique Auction, January 19-20, 2013

“Be a Champion. Learn ‘the Kicks’ in Football!” The Chester-Pollard Amusement Company’s 1924 “Play Football” was a popular and fun nickel arcade game for two players. The idea was to score a goal for your team by pushing the handle to make one of the little soccer players kick the steel ball.

Among the gambling equipment in the sale is this H.C. Evans Horse Race Wheel complete with odds changer. Chicago’s H.C. Evans and Company was the country’s leading manufacturer of carnival and casino equipment for six decades. Its top of the line wheels include the Big Six, the Jumbo Dice Wheel and the Horse Race Wheel. The wheel measures 60 inches in diameter and approximately 87 inches high.

H.C. Evans & Co. Horse Race Gambling Wheel

H.C. Evans & Co. Full Size Horse Race Gambling Wheel, Victorian Casino Antique Auction, January 19-20, 2013

Perfect Time to Bring Back the Coney Island Velodrome

January 11, 2013 by Tricia

Two racers at the Coney Island Velodrome. The star is Tom Duffin Jr. Photo courtesy Century Road Club Association via NYBikeJumble.com

The news that philanthropist Joshua Rechnitz’s plan to donate $50M to build an indoor velodrome in Brooklyn Bridge Park was scrapped got us thinking: Why not build the velodrome in Coney Island, which had an outdoor one from 1930 until the 1950s? It was New York’s last commercial bicycle racing venue, according to NY Bike Jumble founder Harry Schwartzman, who curated an exhibit of bikes, photos and ephemera relating to the Coney Island Velodrome at Brooklyn’s Old Stone House in 2010.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Rechnitz and his nonprofit NYC Fieldhouse had withdrawn the proposal for Brooklyn Bridge Park due to high site costs and would seek another location in the New York Metro area for the sports complex. According to NYC Fieldhouse’s website: “As currently envisioned, a facility of no more than 115,000 sq. ft. will hold a maximum of 2499 seats. It will feature a 200-meter inclined cycling track, a boathouse, a 22,000 sq. ft. infield and other spaces that will serve various public uses including sporting events and community activities.” The gift was the largest single donation to New York City parks and would have covered the design and construction of the building as well as any revenue shortfall over the first ten years.

Velodrome Rider. Photo courtesy Century Road Club Association via NYBikeJumble.com

The Coney Island Velodrome was a 10,000-seat arena with a 1/8-mile wooden oval track. The venue also hosted prize fights and midget car racing. The velodrome was razed in 1955 to make way for Luna Park Houses. ATZ asked Schwartzman for his thoughts on the Coney Island Velodrome and the possibility of bringing it back. He said in an email:

The Coney Island Velodrome at 12th and Neptune was a ‘competition’ track where a typical race day would include up to twenty three events, from 100 meter sprints to 40 mile motor paced events where riders would shadow a motorcycle around the track at speeds upwards of fifty miles an hour. The track was built in the thirties, waning days of the popularity of bicycle track racing in the USA, and the sport was not as popular as it had been in the eighteen nineties or in the twenties, when stars, gangsters and celebrities would frequent the races.

Coney Island’s audience would have been more proletarian and most likely recent immigrants from lands where bicycle racing was still popular. Cycling is still a very accessible sport, and track racing is even more so than any other discipline. With the explosion of the popularity of cycling, it’s the perfect time to bring back the Coney Island Velodrome!

Coney Island Velodrome Program, Collection of Century Road Club Association. Courtesy NYBikeJumble.com

Victrola Vault: In Summertime Down By the Sea (1904)

January 9, 2013 by Tricia

Temps in the mid-50s in January coupled with the news that 2012 was the hottest ever in the US has put us in the mood for a little summertime music. “In Summertime Down by the Sea” was sung by the successful early recording artist Dan W. Quinn in 1904, when Dreamland was brand-new and Luna Park was just one year old. “The splendid new summer song. Don’t fail to get it for your act,” said an ad in The New York Dramatic Mirror.

In summertime down by the sea
The only real place boys for me
Take a ride on a trolley get there before dark
Take your sweetheart to Dreamland or to Luna Park
In summertime down by the sea
The place where we all like to be…

The Columbia black wax cylinder record is played on a 1901 Columbia Model AB Graphophone. Both are from the collection of Victrolaman, whose 1920s recording of the Mills Brothers “Coney Island Washboard Roundelay” was previously featured on ATZ. Victrolaman’s YouTube channel features recorded sound from the 1890s up to the mid-1930s played on the original gramophones & phonographs of that era.

In Summertime Down by the Sea. The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music, Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University