Even though Dick Bueschel has 14 gleaming slot machines in his Mt. Prospect home, he swears he`s not a gambling man.
His collection, which includes a cast-iron Clawson ”Three Jackpot”
model and a flashy 1950s-era machine with pulsing red lights, serves another purpose, he said.
”It`s my psychologist. I`ll get up in the morning and put a couple of nickels in and see how my day is going to go. If I do well, I`m hot the rest of the day,” said the 65-year-old advertising executive.
Bueschel and other slots enthusiasts attended the Chicagoland Antique Advertising, Slot Machine and Jukebox Show held Friday through Sunday at the Pheasant Run Mega Center in St. Charles.
About 7,000 people walked through the show, which featured 400 exhibitions of nickel-plated slot machines, jukeboxes cranking out Elvis and Buddy Holly tunes, dozens of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe posters and other paraphernalia, mostly from the 1950s.
Illinois law makes it illegal to own slot machines, but has an exception for machines at least 25 years old, which are defined as antiques.
Slots are also legal when used in riverboat gambling, which has increased the popularity of the machines, said Alan Sax, owner of Nationwide Amusement/ Slot Machine Brokers in Long Grove.
Sax said many of his customers come to him after recent trips of riverboat gambling.
For some slots enthusiasts, the machines can be a link to more youthful, adventuresome days or a way of studying American popular history.
But Bob Kabat, a 57-year-old Melrose Park man, said that taking apart and rebuilding the slot machines ”keeps him quiet,” which is important because he has had three heart attacks.
Like Bueschel, Kabat, doesn`t consider himself a gambler, although his daughter has nicknamed him ”Nevada Bob.”
”I don`t like to play the slot machines unless I have the key to the back,” said Kabat, a former Merc trader who has 30 machines he keeps at home. Restored machines often sell for $2,000 to $3,000, he said.
Slot machines, many of which were built in the 1950s on the West Side, have gained popularity in recent years because of the fashionability of anything associated with the 1950s, said Bueschel, who works part-time as editor of Classic Amusements magazine.
Until the 1970s, former Chicago companies such as O.D. Jennings and Mills Novelty dominated slot machine manufacturing, Bueschel said. Although the machines were illegal in Illinois, Nevada and European countries were profitable markets.
Despite their illegal status, the slot machines tended to filter into the Chicago area, which now makes the region fertile ground for collectors.
Slot machines were invented in the U.S. and are still rare in Europe, Bueschel said. The St. Charles show drew a number of overseas buyers.
Eduard Kaufmann, a sound engineer from Bern, Switzerland, attended the show to buy items for ”Ed`s Speakeasy,” a 1950s-style American bar he is building.
His girlfriend was initially skeptical of his plans, Kaufmann said.
”She was always laughing about my crazy ideas,” he said. ”But now she`s more fanatic than I am. She can`t stop buying slot machines.”
