a good read :

[daverob]

Reminds me of the time we were clearing out some of the damaged machines after the winter high tides had flooded out the front of the arcade.

There was a fruit machine that had been playing up for the past few years that kept having the coin jam alarm set off at random intervals. Moving the cabinet out to investigate the jam always seemed to clear it and reset the alarm. There was never a problem when we were testing it with the back open, so we resigned ourselves to kicking it every time the alarm went off, and this was a totally satisfactory 'temporary fix' at the time.

After the flood this machine had a tide mark about 9 inches up from the bottom of the cabinet with the chipboard starting to swell up, and sea water had got into the transformer box at the bottom of the machine, so it was decided that it was time for it to be retired. As was often the case, I was offered the machine to add to my personal collection before it was parted out. On this occasion I declined as I wasn't that keen on the machine and the water damage wouldn't be an easy repair.

The screwdrivers came out and all of the useful spares were stripped from the machine, and we were left with just the wooden cabinet. The first hit with the sledge hammer went stright through the side of the damp chipboard and a few coins spilled out onto the floor. Now this isn't uncommon when breaking up machines, there are often little nooks and crannys in these machines and the odd coin or two finds it's way into them.

This machine held a bit of a surprise though, there was a sealed box section between the top half of the machine with the hoppers and reels in it, and the bottom 'cash box' section with the coin overflow boxes and the transformers. When this section was broken open it was like opening a pirates treasure chest and a whole avalanche of coins and tokens flowed out.

There was enough in there to fill a 5 gallon bucket to the brim and a few handfulls left over, with a good proportion of them being one pound coins. Coins must have been getting stuck in there for a very long time as I managed to get about £35 of old 50p and 10p coins (which had both been out of circulation for a quite number of years) to pass onto a friend who collects older arcade and fruit machines.

The arcade owner never told me exactly how much was in the machine at the time (probably to save me from kicking myself any more than I had been for turning down this free machine!), but when we were closing down the arcade and chatting about the good old days he did let slip that it was over £700 (about $1000!).

While I would have loved to have been the one who got to keep all the hidden treasure, I don't think I'd swap it for the memory of seeing the expression on the face of the owner, and watching the eyes of a grown man light up like a small child on Christmas day as the coins kept spilling out onto the floor. It was also nice to see a big wide grin on his face for the rest of the day, especially seeing as the previous day's events had been a bit depressing.