Sun 'bicycle' Trade Stimulator (1895) in action Two versions of the 'Bicycle' trade stimulator This, like all those to follow, was, strictly speaking, illegal gambling and the term 'trade stimulator' may have come along at this time in a feeble attempt to cover the gambling aspect by saying the thing simply encouraged customers to use your shop/bar because this source of fun was available.ĭrop coin & coin flick machines like these (these two are in fact later designs) were among the first cased 'Trade Stims' to stand freely on the counter, their real purpose was more likely to grab the small change returned to a customer after a sale, after WW2 when the Trade Stim market declined this type of machine-made a comebackīy the end of the 19th cent, the first mechanical coin-operated trade stims could be found in bars and on shop counters alongside the many coin drop and flick coin/ball machines that had already become popular. One of the biggest early successes was the 'bicycle ' a version of which was made by several companies and in several styles using the new popularity of the bicycle as a feature. The first of the genre was most likely the simple punch(or pin) board where a customer paid for a chance to push out a pinhole in a board of at least 100 in the hope of pushing out a ticket indicating a prize. Whereas it might be true to say the gambling slot machine started life in towns (or at least in the saloon) it would be just as fair to say the trade Stim started life in more rural areas (or at least in the general store). even the name is confusing until you look a little deeper into their use as it's hard to see how these would stimulate trade. At their peak, they often took the form of a true one arm bandit style slot machine( all be it a small one with no automatic payout) yet remained so different in their usage that they are never looked at as being the same as a standard slot machine. Trade stimulators are one of the strangest areas of coin-operated slot machine history. The Rye Heritage Ctr Collection of Working Models.See a Selection of the More Complex Machines at Work.

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