Classic/Vintage Fruit Machines

Here's a few which were just starting to disappear as I became more regular in the arcades (just finished Uni and was looking for work so had a bit of spare time on my hands :p)



Yep, the barcrest MPU3's

These were arriving on the scene a year or 2 before i left school.

Nudges Unlimited, Instant Replay, Exchanges Unlimited, Adders & Ladders, Super Line up (Line Up on £2) Snappy Viper (Hyper Viper On £2) and Chances Unlimited (Options Unlimited on £2)

There was also a Barcrest video screen one with 4 reels but cant remember the name, silver something or other.

Got me bloody hooked these did
 
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Silver Shuffle, Silver Ghost, Silver Shadow (probably not the latter) few I can think of but no idea what they looked like :oops: :p

No, dont think so.

I only ever saw two of them, where as the others were everywhere.

Other MPU3's were the taller cabs.

Strike a lite, Fortune Numbers and Razzle Dazzle. All With roulette wheel gambles
 
Enjoy Richy and be sure to let us know if you go in and/or buy a fruity from him.:thumbsup:

Not important but if you do go and remember, ask him whether he has a list of fruities for sale as I'd be very interested also for the right price :D


I am sure I will enjoy it and will also take my 10 year old son along as well. Under 18's are allowed as all machines have small jackpots and the place is classed as a proper 'amusement arcade' as opposed to the other seedy looking money pits with the £500 jackpots, etc.

He has one item for sale at the moment (ebay item 172350234120) and at £149 including delivery, is not a bad price. Courier fees for fruit machines seem to be around £65. As he is local, I can easily get a machine in the back of our Ford Galaxy and get it for a fair bit cheaper.
 
I see the next generation of Gamblers everytime i go to Brid.
I feel sorry for them only being able to play the rubbish which is out today.
Even the 10p £5 jackpots can be brutal as most of them save up for streaks.
I once put £16 in a 10p Partytime Arena before i got a win and the bloody thing didnt go up

Some of the modern £5 stuff isn't too bad... in theory. Unfortunately the vast majority is nailed down to 80℅ RTP or lower by the operators, try making a rewarding game on those shit percentages.

The hour I spent playing a £5 Crazy Fruits Community Party on Paignton Pier this summer (74℅ RTP) will haunt me to my dying day.
 
Some of the modern £5 stuff isn't too bad... in theory. Unfortunately the vast majority is nailed down to 80℅ RTP or lower by the operators, try making a rewarding game on those shit percentages.

The hour I spent playing a £5 Crazy Fruits Community Party on Paignton Pier this summer (74℅ RTP) will haunt me to my dying day.

There is someone who posts videos from Paignton Pier on Youtube.

£5 DOND are just a waste of time, can cost you more than a fiver for a board.

The £5 partytimes with XXX for a £1 can take over £7 to get a win.
The XXX for 40p are more entertaining but dont usually get as much on the top board, although i have had over £30 on one of them with it going back up a couple of times. Had a few Twenties as well.

Golden Games are ok if nearly ready.
My best result on a £5 one is putting 2 quid in a 3 player Coronation Street and getting a £55 streak

If you find the odd classic then they are the entertaining ones
 
Couldn't find any classics in Paignton, lots of arcades but all clones.of each other with party time, GG etc. And of course the £500s which we don't touch because we don't want the holiday ruined by going tilty on them.

And Torquay wasn't much better although the missus nailed the Reno Casinos night after night lol.

Was only on holiday there so two shits are not given.
 
The same chap I've been chatting to now has The Big Breakfast for sale, eBay item 172356451246.

How could I forget about some of these machines? Great fun and entertaining. I seriously need to get a classic machine in my man cave now.

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Yes Colin I know that roker arcade well, it's only about 40 minute drive away for me, still have a 4 pound cops and robbers, lite a nudge and nudge double deluxe.
South Shields ocean beach up the road from there is even better, still as 2 mark 2 each way nudgers, roller coaster, Indiana jones, andy Capp,viz, Las Vegas strip and a canny few more, so I pop up here now and again for some proper nostalgia gaming.

I've been to reel fruits about 4 times and it's great about 140 mostly classic machines all on good percentages and programs, I love it just shame I'm so far away, but really is nice to have, has the rest of machines left in arcades and pubs are mostly pretty bad boring and big money eaters.

I avent been to mr ps in tonebridge yet, but this arcade is a bit smaller, and is over 18s with more older 500 jackpots, and some old 10p club machines, sprinkled in with a few 70, 35, and 25 and classic 15,10, 8 and even a classic 4,80 cloud 9 jackpot fruit, sounds well worth the visit anyway which I intend to do soon.
 
One of my favourite ever machines

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Yes Colin I know that roker arcade well, it's only about 40 minute drive away for me, still have a 4 pound cops and robbers, lite a nudge and nudge double deluxe.
South Shields ocean beach up the road from there is even better, still as 2 mark 2 each way nudgers, roller coaster, Indiana jones, andy Capp,viz, Las Vegas strip and a canny few more, so I pop up here now and again for some proper nostalgia gaming.

I was living about a 3 minute walk from Seaburn arcades up to about 18 months ago, now its about a 15 min drive to the Roker ones:)

I am pretty sure the first arcade you come to at Seaburn (coming from Roker end) has some of these in, with the original buttons like this one

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I've got the clone of the top one in my garage, nudge double-up deluxe. Unfortunately, it stopped working, possibly a board fault. It may well be repairable, so I have kept it, along with one of the JPM "melon meter" machines. I have Lootshoot, which still works, in the lounge.
 
Hi Colin do you not mean south shields, i know seaburn is in between there and roker, maybe hopefully i missing a few jems, didnt know of any arcades in seaburn.
 
Hi Colin do you not mean south shields, i know seaburn is in between there and roker, maybe hopefully i missing a few jems, didnt know of any arcades in seaburn.

No Seaburn :)
As you come along the seafront from Roker, you pass the chip shops on the left, there are 2 arcades before you get to the fairground, just before Morrisons, opposite Fat Budda's ;)

I'm fairly sure its the first one with those machines in, but could be the second one as its been a while since I was there, they are literally a minutes walk apart though so easy to check both :)

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that should be streetview of the first one, the green sign further along is the second one
 
Yes been to these to arcades several arcades unfortunately nothing much left classic wise, super nudge gambler is there, but that's about it, was a 5p maygay monopoly but that since gone, maybe an odd tupenny nudger.
Stuff like red gaming 25 quid, jackpoteers, Simpsons, and a few more 5 quidders is best ya can get, but these not really classics, like I say ocean beach up the road is place to be for some old school.

Apart from here, and reelfruits, and a few others scatterd about, basically all classics are extinct, all arcades up and down the country are the same, loads of boring 500 quid money gobblers, 100 quid stuff like magic mushrooms, avoid like the plague, party times and barx 7s/magic 10s. All pretty poor places these days, in saying that i still go in them,but that's me just been silly.
 
One of my favourite ever machines

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I was living about a 3 minute walk from Seaburn arcades up to about 18 months ago, now its about a 15 min drive to the Roker ones:)

I am pretty sure the first arcade you come to at Seaburn (coming from Roker end) has some of these in, with the original buttons like this one

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Saw a couple of these in an arcade in Scarborough last Sunday, its in the town and not on the seafront.
Also had a Temple Of Treasure and a couple of Pink Pussies (old Maygay Pink Panther clone)
A 10p fiver jackpot Nudge Nudge Wink Wink in a seafront arcade.
Bridlington had a 5p £6 token jackpot Andys Great Escape
 
Yes was here a few weeks back Shaws amusements, temple of treasure, 5p frenzy why you would want it on this stake is anyones guess, 10p is bad enough, 20p/25p/30p all the way great fruit on this stake, was also a 10p reel money clone of jpm casino 5 liner.

I know what you mean as well with andys great escape, not to long ago the original was sat to next to it, infact bridlington wasnt to bad not to long ago, little arcade at the end had a crystalmaze, a rare empire bars and stripes, psycho beast, duff beer guide, a strange cabinet each way nudger, and a canny few more, but i suppose you could say every where was better few years ago, unfortuantely most classics have slowly gone.

Planning a trip soon back down to Maidstone, reel fruits arcade, 140 classic fruits, i could spend days there.
 
The classic days were not all good, earlier this year I had a reminder of the darker side at Sutton Scotney services, the classic 1990's "air-pay" payout option:mad:
 

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Dave who owns the arcade, likes to have it has fair has possible and have the games running to best of their availability, which in most cases means they have the earliest rom/game set available, a lot of games over the years got chipped, to take away cheats/emptiers e.t.c thus often ruining the gameplay, some tricks are left in on purpose in reel fruits, to recreate the old school feel.

Yes plenty of 3 quid 6 quid token fruits plenty on 20p play as well so give a very nice game, stuff like andy capp, viz,grand national, eastenders, noels house party, bullseye, all on has original can find roms.

Then you have 8 quid and ten quid fruits like jpm roller coaster, snakes and ladders, indiana jones, barcrest lucky strike, cash attack, bfm showtime spectacular, big breakfast, and the like,

Also he has a pretty big selection of so called newer fruits, but most of these are over 15 year old so classics in my eyes, 5 quid 10p play or 20p play wipeout, duff beer guide, big brother, 20p play 5 quid play great game.

Basically fruits from the 80s up until the mid 2000s, you will find them here, well worth the trip like me if ya like ya fruit classics.
 
Don't recognise those ^^ , saying that never played a £100 JP AWP.

Do recall the regular 'Air Pays' though :( and before that the 'clunk, clunk' of empty tubes.

Had to go to the onsite shop and fill in a form to claim then wait like what seemed to be forever.

Largest ever I.O.U I collected from Hilton Park Services was around £50. Completely emptied the Ace Coin 'Open the Box' and then built the machines 'bank' back up to max, more as a 'You never know' type thing.

Took about 6 weeks but got paid in full via a cheque.

Tried something very similar at Sandbach Services this time with a friend and on a larger scale.

They had 3 Ace machines at the time and IIRC had an IOU for around £100. Got a phone call after a while and when we got there and reported to wherever it was we were asked to go to (can't recall where or who we were supposed to meet) we were greeted with around 4-5 coin bags filled with 20p tokens.

Hoping to collect cash and ending up with these we were gambling well into the night and ended up getting home around 3am!
 
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Don't recognise those ^^ , saying that never played a £100 JP AWP.

Do recall the regular 'Air Pays' though :( and before that the 'clunk, clunk' of empty tubes.

Had to go to the onsite shop and fill in a form to claim then wait like what seemed to be forever.

Largest ever I.O.U I collected from Hilton Park Services was around £50. Completely emptied the Ace Coin 'Open the Box' and then built the machines 'bank' back up to max, more as a 'You never know' type thing.

Took about 6 weeks but got paid in full via a cheque.

Tried something very similar at Sandbach Services this time with a friend and on a larger scale.

They had 3 Ace machines at the time and IIRC had an IOU for around £100. Got a phone call after a while and when we got there and reported to wherever it was we were asked to go to (can't recall where or who we were supposed to meet) we were greeted with around 4-5 coin bags filled with 20p tokens.

Hoping to collect cash and ending up with these we were gambling well into the night and ended up getting home around 3am!

That's the problem, you filled in the form, and most of the time you would have to go back and prod and poke them, otherwise the claim would never get paid. It seems they assumed all players were faking it.

When it happened with that £100 JP machine, all I could find was the McDonalds shift manager, and he didn't have a clue what to do, nor the right forms when he found out. He said he would pass it on and I would get a call back. It didn't happen so I dug their number out off the internet (something we didn't have in the "classic" era), and phoned them. They said it had never been passed on to them, so I gave the woman a brief lecture on the new rules implemented by the UKGC, and that I didn't feel that the McDonalds shift manager was a suitable member of staff to be the one charged with policing the 18+ area as he didn't even know how to follow the correct procedure that was displayed in the casino area, so probably didn't know how to ensure UKGC requirements were met.

I got my £30 back though, but she tried to short pay by not refunding the unused £1 that was held in the credit bank, so it seems even she didn't understand how to interpret the on screen error message and pay the correct amount.

I had hoped that having machines trap the short pay error and freeze with the amount owing would put an end to the old system where the only evidence of a claim was the players' word, and the engineer checking the meters vs the cash held, and them only processing claims that were covered by the excess cash vs what the meters said should be there. This of course meant the honest player could be ripped off by someone trying to claim and getting theirs in first from seeing that a machine had faulted, even though they weren't the ones playing it.
 
Careful with Reelfruits maidstone Yorkstar. As you probably read elsewhere, the locals are usually quite well ontop of the playables in there. Good percenteges yeah, but mostly 10/20p play so can take a hammering on some if caught at the wrong time & playing for a bit of fun.
The rollercoaster is on £5jackpot and 10p play i believe. It was numbering and i put £32 in for 3 nemesises and a £15 big money. 2 nemesis didn't go :mad: so i was on it bloomin ages. would have broke evens but it shafted me £1 on payout haha.
Dave is a good bloke, that roller coaster decided to turn itself off on the feature board randomly. Wasn't asking for compensation but he gave me a fiver for the trouble, and refuse to take it back.
It's a great place but catch it at the wrong time and it can get expensive.

As for the mentioned Aladdins cave, what a bloody machine that was when on £8 token 20p play. Always felt slightly tighter than rollercoaster, while numbering like rollercoaster and no cancel button to cheat the princess tower skillstop, which liked a repeat. I believe it's on £6 jackpot in reelfruits, maybe even £8. tokens or cash i could not say - some of them there state token jackpot but pay cash. Only ever knew of one in my lifetime which i adored to bits, happened to be in my local huge (extinct now) arcade that also included about 8 roller coasters!

The only other old school machine i can think of, which i believe Dave was also after obtaining for his collection last time i stepped into Reelfruits, is the rare classic Mr.Do! so rare, and a similar profile as to labrynth/sphinx so a good game with hidden features etc.. was always entertaining and remains sorely missed.
 
The aladdins cave, I had one in my arcade years ago... it's much tighter than the roller coaster!
It's based in a jpm system5 cab but runs on barcrest mpu4 crystal rebuild, on 10p play £8 cash, the most I've ever seen it repeat twice off the top feature.
The roller was on £10 then I upgraded it to £15 in oct '98 most I've ever seen it do a £120 off the top feature!
I like the original pcp aladdins cave in an early MPs cab on £2 2p play.
I had eachway nudger mk2, eachway shuffle and supa steppa (all jpm MPs) and a sru ctl eachway shuffle 5p play £1.50
Lovely thread, good memories of the hey days!
 

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