Amusement games can give more than laughs

Antique and vintage amusement arcade games are sought after by collectors, restaurateurs and dealers alike, especially in the US and Britain.

Some machines are still fully in use in arcades in location such as Bray, Co Wicklow, but Mr Ian Whyte of Whyte's auctioneers in Marlborough Street, Dublin, says: "You'll probably find that the cute hawks have been around the country and snapped up all the best ones."

Mr Nick Hawkins, a specialist in the mechanical music department at Phillips auctioneers in London, says that vintage arcade games can be worth hundreds and up to thousands of pounds.

A Phillips auction on February 9th includes a collection of 30 games including one-arm bandits and various amusement machines, many dating from the 1950s.

One of the early French amusement arcade games in the auction took no prisoners. The player held two handles and if you got the ball in the wrong chute it gave out a short electric shock. "That bit's missing now," says Mr Hawkins, with some relief.

Four full-size one-arm bandits, about six feet tall, of various figures including John Wayne are included in the auction, each with an estimate of £800£1,200 sterling. The Stetson-wearing Wayne incorporates a Mills "High Top" 6d bandit in his torso, his arm acting as the handle for the 200 coin pay-out game.

Other figures include two chorus girls dressed in short red skirts, stilettos and hats, holding trays of dummy cigars and matches, offering 27 winning combinations. The fourth figure is a lasso swinging 180 centimetre-tall cowboy in Texas State Marshall uniform with 1d operation and gun arm.

A traditional fortune teller in a booth with rolling eyes whose hand points to a crystal ball and delivers your fortune on a card is expected to fetch £400£600 sterling.

A rare 1920s German coin game with a clenched brass hand acting as the trigger is estimated at £500£700, while an early 20th century French Art Nouveau amusement machine is expected to fetch £300£400.

Some collectors go only for early fairground games and amusement machines, while others buy them for things like themed restaurants, he says. "I think that's where things like the big John Wayne and chorus girl machines will probably go. The early machines will probably go to collectors. A few of the others might go to dealers who do business in mechanical music and mechanical toys."

Depending on how rare they are, 1950s games tend to fetch between £200 and £600 sterling. Games from about the early 20th century tend to go for between £500 and £700. However, the early models from the late 19th century can fetch up to the thousands, he says.

Automata or mechanical moving figures are a related type of collectible, bordering on amusement machines. Mainly French, from the late 19th century, the record is for a French-made woman snake charmer that fetched £140,000 sterling, he says.

"There's a rabbit playing a violin, some birds, an old woman with a spinning wheel, there's a clown with a broom and a girl sitting on a chair and there's a phonograph movement in the chair so when you wind it up it looks as though she's singing. She kicks her feet about and moves her head," he says, indicating some of the automata at next month's auction.

Mr Nick Hawkins can be contacted on 0044 1564 776151.

jmarms@irish-times.ie