Many trade simulator machines were given free advertising in trade mags like BILLBOARD.. theres a murky cross over between Stimulating trade and illegal gambling.. everything was encouraged and yet everything was also illegal to some extent.
We have a somewhat murky past here in Australia too. Pokie machines were illegal till sometime mid to late 50's ( 56 if I remember correct.. cant be arsed to Wikipedia it right now..lol), that doesn't mean that they didn't exist.. they did and quite extensively. By time they were made legal in NSW ( first place to legalise), Nutt & Muddle had a massive factory making them.. they had moved some years previously to bigger premises to increase production!
My own peep show machine is Australian made but as I dug deep into its manufacture I came up with dead ends everywhere.
The projector is made by " Tom Thumb".. a company that never existed. When I was enquiring about spare parts I was pissing a few of the film projection enthusiasts off as I kept telling them that its made by Tom Thumb and they kept telling me it couldn't be as the company never existed.
On the front is a patent plaque.. when you go to the US patent office and type in the number you come up with an obscure hay bailing machine from 1896. The address on the plaque is in NSW.. Rushcutters Place. Look up this address and no building existed on the corner named until much later.. but just up the road is the Nutt & Muddle factory..LOL
All cloak and daggers.. and all designed to attract customers but to never be prosecuted by the police.. Ha ha! Often the history is better than the machine..
