Bell-Fruit Games Ltd

[malj1]

Guess what I found 
GOLD AWARD / 500 / Fr / VALUE
4.45g
21.45mm

I now have one of these tokens and have it on a new web page devoted to Bell Fruit tokens made for export.

Is their use in Luxembourg confirmed yet?

Another page shows their Jackpot tokens.

[brandm24]

This is an interesting token that I'd like help identifying.

The only thing I found was a vague reference to a company called Bell Fruit Games in Nottingham. Apparently they were manufacturers of gaming machines or vending machines. If this is the issuer it would be a token used in their machines?

The token measures 21.5 mm and weighs 4.5 g and is brass. Any help would be appreciated.

Bruce

[FosseWay]

Yes, you're spot on with Bell Fruit in Nottingham.

Hayes "British Machine Tokens" lists 78 different tokens from this issuer, and that is just in the original catalogue. There are more in the supplements and further that are unlisted, including overstrikes and other oddities. Yours is 49.76 in the catalogue.

They're also interesting in that they span the period before, during and after decimalisation in the UK (1971), so you get otherwise similar tokens with just £sd values, with both £sd and decimal, and just decimal. Yours exists in a variant where it says 5/- instead of 25p (49.41).

Malcolm's your man for more info on these, I think!

[Figleaf]

To get an idea of Mal's collection, just of Bell fruit stuff:
https://sites.google.com/site/machpart4/bell-fruitjackpot
https://sites.google.com/site/machpart4/bell-fruitexport

More on this site:
http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,12443.0.html
http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,37492.msg237870.html#msg237870
http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,9796.msg65843.html#msg65843
http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,26704.msg174487.html#msg174487
http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,16396.msg156656.html#msg156656
http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,20782.msg151024.html#msg151024

Peter

[brandm24]

Thanks for all the information, guys. I never thought there was so much to the company as I found a few scant references to them here...nothing significant either.

What I found particularly interesting was the vast variety of tokens they used. Surprisingly, some were even engraved.

Bruce

[Figleaf]

The engraved number on your token is there for a practical reason specified on the token: "redeemable only by winner where won". The gaming machine was operated by the owner, so his risk was that the player would win. In theory, the owner would not want to shoulder the risk that the player would win somewhere else and cash in on his machine - though in practice these tokens can be found without an engraved number. The number was a check on whether the player had won on the owner's machine.

The check was of course not watertight. If player A had won tokens on machine 1 and lost them on machine 2 and player B had won tokens on machine, tokens from machine 1 among his winnings would be refused, even though fairly won on machine 2. Therefore, each machine would have a population of "correctly" and "incorrectly" numbered tokens and I don't think owners ever bothered to sort out the tokens from other machines.

Peter

[brandm24]

That makes sense on my token, Peter, but I was referring to the ones in the link (Mal's collection I think) that were just badly engraved discs.

Bruce

[malj1]

This is an interesting token that I'd like help identifying.

The only thing I found was a vague reference to a company called Bell Fruit Games in Nottingham. Apparently they were manufacturers of gaming machines or vending machines. If this is the issuer it would be a token used in their machines?

The token measures 21.5 mm and weighs 4.5 g and is brass. Any help would be appreciated.

Bruce

Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Ltd of Nottingham were established in 1963.

The 1963 Betting and Gaming Act, allowed slot machines to pay out One Shilling in cash, and Five Shillings in prizes.