Old Colorado slot machine token, Female proprietor!

[diggingthe1]

Good finds sure don't come along often. I went over to the neighboring town to take the trash over and thought it would be the perfect time to detect. I pulled this out of the ground and couldn't read it untill I got home. Cripple Creek The Dewey Slot Machine Colorado, the reverse says, The Optimo 5 Mrs H B Sommer. If anyone can find anymore information about this coin that would be awesome!! This sure has me excited!! Happy Swinging!!

 

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[Doubter in MD]

 

[Red-Coat]

Cool find.

Her establishment is listed in Pritchard?s ?Guide To Colorado Merchant Trade Tokens? as a ?Cigar Stand & Flower Shop?, with a date of 1904. There was (still is) a cigar company making ?Optimo? cigars since 1898 in Jacksonville, Florida but I don?t know if it?s connected to the naming of Mrs Sommer?s store or if this token was redeemable for a cigar.

The Dewey slot machine was made by the Mills Novelty Company.

America's pride in the victorious naval hero of the Spanish-American War prompted Mills Novelty to produce this patriotic Dewey upright machine. Portraits of the admiral, George Dewey, are in a front casting and painted on the medallion of the etched mirrored glass.

Operators appreciated the machine's reliability and large earning capacity, and The Dewey continued to attract the customers from its inception in 1899 until around 1930, making it the longest produced upright. [source: arcade-history.com]

There were a number of models in the series:

1. The Dewey (1899)
1. The Dewey [Musical model] (1899)
2. The Dewey [Check] (1901)
2. The Dewey [Check] [Musical model] (1901)
3. The Dewey Jackpot (1902)
3. The Dewey Jackpot [Musical model] (1902)
4. The Dewey [Improved model] (1903)
4. The Dewey [Musical] [Improved model] (1903)
5. The Dewey [Check] [Improved model] (1903)
5. The Dewey [Check] [Musical] [Improved model] (1903)

 

[diggingthe1]

Thanks for the link Doubter! I was fortunate to see the Band play in Telluride!!!
Red Coat, I sure appreciate the information. I looked up some of those slot machines. They are beautiful!!! Hopefully I can hunt one down to see it in person! I found one similar token from Nevada with Dewey on it but I have not seen any others. I have been watching tokens for about 20 years around here and have not seen this one. I think it is quite rare. Thanks again for the great information!!

 

[scruggs]

Nice find!

 

[erfranks]

Congrats on Great token, nice save!!

 

[diggingthe1]

Thanks erfranks and Scruggs, it's a nice one for the case!!

 

[islamoradamark]

Nice find The mills company made thousands of slot machines 1 cent to 50 cent machines

 

[BondJamesBond]

Is there a possibility that the tokens listed above for the Dewey were sent out with each slot machine ordered, might at the time of the order, have changed somewhat.
Red coat suggest that there may be a connection between the Florida Enter prize and the cr. ck. Colorado concern. With the knowledge of yet another Dewey token from Nevada it may be the case that if the slot machines originated from Florida and Mills Novelty supplied the tokens to the Dewey Florida) Judging from the differences in each year it might suggest reason for the changes. Furthermore, Mills may have also supplied the tokens to the Dewey ( Nevada ) in the same way. Just a thought.

Bond

 

[Red-Coat]

Not really what I was suggesting. The Mills Novelty Company was based in Chicago, but supplied their machines all over the place. The Dewey range was one of several offerings. My understanding is that they did indeed also produce the tokens for their machines. Some appear to be generic in design but are often seen with crudely counterstamped initials to tie them to particular proprietors operating the machines. Others are customer specific and were produced with whatever information the operating customer wanted, including business names, addresses and redemption details if required.

What I was musing on is that it may not be a coincidence that Mrs Sommer (whose business included a cigar stand) had her tokens produced with a reference to “The Optimo”, since it was the name of a popular cigar brand at the time. Although produced in Florida, those cigars had wide distribution and “5 cent cigars” were very much a thing at the time.

Mills did actually also produce cigar vending machines based on the same patents as their slot machines, but didn’t have any connection to the cigar industry beyond that and their Dewey range was not designed for vending. These were essentially gambling machines but with payout in tokens to evade legislative restrictions. An operator could tie the tokens to drinks, meals, cigars or whatever they happened to sell.

 

[Digger RJ]

Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[jeff of pa]

5 Cent Dewey Slot Machine

Looks like Turn of the Century 1898 - 1908 they were Hitting the news

 

[jeff of pa]

only connection to cripple creek found.

The Sun (Chanute, Kansas) 27 Apr 1909, Tue

Most Mentions of the Name are in Utah

The Toggery Shop 44 s. Main Salt Lake City proprietor of a New store 1911

No Idea if her

 

[jeff of pa]

No connection Found for
"Mrs H B Sommer" optimo, dewey or Cripple Creek

However the Optomo was a Cigar. I think cuban
No idea if a 5 cent cigar
, So it may have been a way to get around Gambling laws
& good for 1 or 5 Optimo cigars, or 5cents under the table.


Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) 13 Jun 1916, Tue

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Very cool token find, hope you're able to clean it up a bit more.
Dave

 

[pepperj]

Cool token, congrats on the recovery.
Looking through the 159 tokens from Cripple Creek it isn't listed.
Might want to send off a photo to the site and have it reg. as it very well might be a rare find for sure.

Display Token Records - All States

 

[Elvis]

Sweet token!!!

 

[PetesPockets55]

Congrats on the find.

Looks to be a copper or brass token. Hydrogen peroxide usually cleans the dirt and verdigris off without damage. Start with short soaks.

 

[diggingthe1]

Thank you all for the posts and more information!! I really enjoyed the picture of the machine, and the articles Jeff!! I was going to add it to the catalog when I get it cleaned up a little better. I love that Cripple Creek has so many tokens to find. PetesPockets, I tried a few short soaks. What is considered a long soak? I guess I could try a few hours, and then try overnight. I was about to take fine steel wool to it.

 

[Red-Coat]

No connection Found for
"Mrs H B Sommer" optimo, dewey or Cripple Creek

However the Optomo was a Cigar. I think cuban
No idea if a 5 cent cigar
, So it may have been a way to get around Gambling laws
& good for 1 or 5 Optimo cigars, or 5cents under the table.

This may or may not be the right “Sommer” family, bur the immigrant Hans Bertram Fogtmann Lykke Sommer was born in 1865 in L?gst?r (Denmark) and died in Spokane, Washington in 1936. For the genealogy site where I found this, his residence in America and the identity of his wife are not disclosed but they must have been in Cripple Creek at some time since their only son (Bertram Dey Sommer) was born there in 1904.

It was usual in those times that a married lady would formally refer to herself using the title “Mrs”, but with her husband’s forenames/initials… so “Mrs Hans Bertram Sommer” as an example.

In earlier times pretty much every cigar maker had a “5 cent cigar”. It was the tobacco world equivalent of the “penny chew” in the confectionery world.

Cool token, congrats on the recovery.
Looking through the 159 tokens from Cripple Creek it isn't listed.
Might want to send off a photo to the site and have it reg. as it very well might be a rare find for sure.

Display Token Records - All States

It is in fact already listed in “Token Catalog”, with the Pritchard reference I originally gave but without an image: