Sunday, August 7, 2011

South Coast Antiques & Gallery visits The GI Museum in Gautier, MS

 
Doug Mansfield
Owner & Operator of
The GI Museum
Today we went to the The GI Museum located at 5796 Ritcher Road in Gautier, MS. We were very fortunate to have Doug Mansfield the owner & operator to give us a personal tour of the museum today. This wonderful Museum aims to preserve memorabilia representing the generations of Americans who have served our country so that we can remain free today.  The museum does this through many thoughtfully and carefully arranged displays and by means of a number of educational programs. This collection has items from WWI all the way through the current era. The museums goal is to make sure we never forget the sacrifices that the men and woman of our country have made as civilians and military during war time service.


Very rare combat photographer's field kit WWII era
This is not simply an arry of militay equipment, but a exhibition of the everyday things that were used by the the average military member and supporting civilians. They feature a lot of items that were extremely common when new 70 years ago, but have become quite rare over the years. I was thrilled to see a package of Wings brand cigarettes! We saw a WWII era Russian Maxim machine gun. They have some rare Flying Tigers memorabilia. And to top it all off, Mister Mansfield had so much great information to share. It was a truly enjoyable and educational experiance! I know that The GI Museum will be a repeat destination for us in the future!

Field radio set up with military bugle and issued phonograph WWII era
The GI Museum also sponsars the WKFK TV show Local Heroes. On this locally televised show Doug Mansfield interviews military veterns about their military experiances
 
For further information check out The GI Museum

Russian Maxim Gun WWII era

Various WWII era Marine personal affects

Assorted WWII era Men's and Women's Uniforms

WWII civilian war effort, related items

Flying Tigers memorabilia


WWI era uniforms

Every day personnal items that would have been
used by WWII military personnel


Thursday, August 4, 2011

Pachinko,Bagatelle, and the Galton Box. Vintage Pachinko Machines at South Coast Antiques & Gallery

 The pachinko machine has some interesting precursors.  The bagatelle was a popular pastime in France and England starting around 1819.  In fact it was so popular in the 19th century, that an 1864 political cartoon by Currier and Ives shows Abraham Lincoln playing bagatelle with General McClellan satirizing the presidential election of that year.
 There are even earlier versions such as the Galton Box, invented by Sir Francis Galton to demonstrate a mathematical theorem, but that’s another story.
At some time, billiards, bagatelle and pinball diverged to create completely different games
Pachinko remained closer to the spirit of bagatelle and those popular 19th century shooter games that used pins to deflect the ball. By the late 1920s the first pachinko machines appeared in Nagoya and spread out from there.  All of Japan's pachinko parlors were closed down during World War II but re-emerged in the late 1940s. Pachinko has remained popular since; the first commercial parlor was opened in Nagoya in 1948 establishments, spreading to Ginza and far beyond.

From the 1930s until the early 1980s, pachinko machines were mechanical devices, using bells to indicate different states of the machine. Electricity, if available, was used only to flash lights and to indicate problems, such as a machine emptied of its balls.  Polished steel balls were launched using a flipper; their speed was controlled by pulling the flipper down to different levels.  The balls are then shot into the machine from a ball tray with the purpose of attempting to win more balls. When shot, the balls drop through an array of pins; some of them will fall into the center gate and start up the slot machine in the center screen. Every ball that goes into the center gate results in one spin of the slot machine, but there is a limit on the number of spins at one time because of the possibility of balls passing through the center gate while a spin is still in progress. Each spin pays out a small number of balls, but the objective is to hit the jackpot. Older pachinko machines had a spring-loaded lever for shooting the balls individually, but newer ones use a round knob that controls the strength of an electrically fired plunger that shoots the balls onto the playing field.

Most of these machines available today date to the 1960s and 1970s.  By the 1980s, pachinko machines began to incorporate more and more electrical  features rather than being mechanical.  When in Ocean Springs stop by and see one of our recently acquired vintage Pachinko machines that we have for sale!