Jump to content

The History of Oak Manufacturing


T BIRD

Recommended Posts

That would be great! I hope you can find what I need. Thanks! Does anyone know the history behind the penny nickel oak acorn and oak vista coin mechs?

 

Like, when they were made, or like, who designed them? The Acorn came out in the 1940's if memory serves, so I'd wager the penny would have been the first coins they would have been designed to accept. Anything beyond that I don't know though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like I had never seen a mech of this type that accepted two different coin types, in this case a penny or a nickle. I was told the oak vista Penny nickle mechs I am working on came out in the late 50's early 60's. Who invented the technology behind one turn for a penny and 5 turns for a nickel? Was it invented by the oak company? Why didn't it last for long? What makes this type of mech so rare?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oak came out in 1948 I think. Northwestern also had a penny nickle coin mech, I have s box of those around somewhere. Several different manufacturers had similar mechs. Not sure about the history but since oak came out in the late forties and the northwestern mechs I have fit the model 60 (1959 ish) I would say the penny nickle was a 60s thing. BTW northwestern began business in 1909,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But who came up with the penny nickle idea? What year did it first come out? Why wasn't it around for long?

 

The first use of the Penny/Nickel combo mech I could find in what I've got archived is the Oak Acorn from 1954. It may have come about earlier, but that's the earliest mention I could find in all the files I've got here. As musser said, it's more of a 60's thing, as most of the one's I'm seeing are Oak Acorns and Northwestern 60's from the early to mid-60's.

 

Who came up with it is a total mystery- I expect it was Oak's doing, but I've no way of finding out. Oak is not an easy company to talk to if you're not talking business, in my experience.

I do know that the end of the Penny/Nickel combo mechs were phased out for technical reasons. 2 coins, a lot of moving parts made for more expensive and complicated mechs that were far more prone to jamming than single coin mechs. As the value moved from the Penny and Nickel vendors towards dimes and quarters in the 60's and 70's they became less attractive, the same way that other mechs have been phased out over the years.

 

On a similar note, I found mention of a Victor $0.35 coin mech for the Victor Model 77. Evidently it took a quarter and a dime- though I couldn't find a picture or anything more on it than that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...