Reading Room · Fortune-Telling Methods · Method
What were coin-operated fortune-telling machines?
Coin-operated fortune-telling machines were penny-arcade amusements in which a coin set a mechanical figure or device in motion to deliver a printed card or spoken fortune. They appeared in the late 19th century and were especially common in the United States and British seaside resorts.
Facts checked on against 16 sources, 10 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| 1769 | Wolffgang de Kempelen is named as the inventor of the Automaton Chess Player, which was completed within six months of his promise to Empress Maria Theresa. It belongs to the wider automaton tradition rather than to fortune-telling machines.1 |
|---|---|
| Late 1800s | Coin-operated devices expanded into the United States with gambling devices, trade stimulators, vending machines and arcade games.2 |
| 1885–1888 | John Dennison of Leeds built the MUSICAL FAIRY fortune teller in 1885, and the Dennison SORCERER FORTUNE TELLER followed in 1887. A third early machine was first produced by the Vulcan Engine Works in the summer of 1888.34 |
| About 1904 | Mills Novelty Company made the Verbal Fortune Teller, which cost one penny and played fortunes from a hidden record player.56 |
| 1906 | A talking fortune-teller machine in Virginia City, Montana, used a recording to speak fortunes to whoever fed it a nickel.7 |
| 1920s–1930s | By the 1930s fortune-telling machines could be found across the United States in penny arcades, and the Gipsy Fortune-Teller Slot Machine in Brighton was built in the early 1930s.58 |
| 1965 | The first Zoltan machine was created in 1965, a sultan-dressed fortune teller of which only 50 or 60 were made.59 |
| 1988 | The film Big featured a Zoltar fortune-telling machine, and the general public first met Zoltar in that movie.510 |
What the machines did
A customer put a coin, or in later years a dollar bill, into the slot. A life-size figure in a glass-fronted booth then nodded, moved its mouth, hands and eyes, and gave a card with the customer's future.11
Early machines ranged from simple countertop devices to automated tellers with wax-cylinder audio. The countertop Futura lit its predictions from a roll of 35 mm film visible through a window atop a plastic crystal ball.12
Fortune-telling features were added to a wide range of coin-operated devices, including scales and napkin dispensers. One 1934 fortune-teller machine was based on a roulette wheel and dispensed a ball of gum for each penny played.12
Some machines used a penny or nickel and a gender-specific slot, with the Brighton Gipsy Fortune-Teller inviting the viewer to choose a slot matching their gender and select a birth month with knobs.8
Places and settings
Coin-operated fortune-telling machines originated in the late 19th century as arcade and boardwalk amusements. At the turn of the 20th century, coin-operated amusement parlors were stocked with fortune-telling scales and other arcade games and became known as penny arcades.132
Machines of this kind were once a major part of British seaside resort holiday culture. Anya Chapman stated that a decline in demand led to the closure of many attractions and tourist infrastructure from the 1970s onwards.8
Fortune-telling machines were popular in the United States, where many 20th century amusement parks had them to attract customers.119
Figures and presentation
Typical machines featured animated automatons, often stereotypical representations of Romani people, witches or ancient Middle Eastern royalty. Coin-operated fortune-telling machines featured exotic figures such as Romani people, mummies, skulls, devils or wizards, as well as old women and Puss-in-Boots.139
Fortune-telling was so fashionable that some machines advertised the subject without offering a fortune.12
Early fortune-telling machines included Madame Zita, a Roma-style fortune teller, Grandmothers Predictions, which chose a card from stacks, and Princess Doraldina, a princess with lifelike movements.513
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Robert Willis's 1821 work on the Automaton Chess Player is a separate treatise, and it classes automata as simple, compound or spurious.14
Conrad William Cooke's 1891 paper on automata describes Hero of Alexandria's coin-operated drink dispenser, in which a coin opened a valve, and Cooke's account of Maillardet's fortune-teller, which answered questions by holes drilled to different depths in medallions.15
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
John Papa, an antique arcade machine collector, said most coin-operated fortune tellers he knew of were from the 1920s and 1930s, and perhaps the 1950s. He also dated one well-known early machine to between 1904 and 1907.16
Papa's view is that coin-operated fortune tellers do not actually tell fortunes. He described them as card vendors that give the customer a printed slip of paper, with the illusion of fortune-telling occurring in between.16
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- The coin-operated fortune teller is best understood as a penny-arcade automaton whose mechanism mainly dispensed a printed or spoken fortune, rather than a true divination device.11166
- Accounts of the machines' origins differ: some writers place the first fortune-telling machines in the 1890s, while others date the first coin-operated fortune tellers to 1910.9
Not yet confirmed
- How did the early penny-arcade fortune teller of the 1880s and 1890s compare in mechanism with the later card-dispensing machines?
- Why did so many machines adopt Romani, mummy and sultan figures, and how did later writers link those figures to the Romani people?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- gutenberg.org: Observations on the Automaton Chess Player Now Exhibited in London, at 4 Spring Gardens. Read on · Primary text
- sfomuseum.org: The Automatic Age: Coin-Operated Machines | SFO Museum. Read on · Museum
- Internet Archive: Arcade 1: Illustrated Historical Guide To Arcade Machines (1993). Read on · Primary text
- archive.org: Full text of "[Arcade 1: Illustrated Historical Guide To Arcade Machines (1993)](https://archive.org/details/arcade-1-1993-book-scans)". Read on · Primary text
- alittlebithuman.com: The Story Behind Zoltar: Your Favorite Fortune-Telling Robot. Read on · Reference
- nbcnews.com: Rare fortune-telling machine found in Old West town. Read on · Reference
- thehistoryblog.com: State, collectors vie for Gypsy fortune teller machine – The History Blog. Read on · Library
- brightonmuseums.org.uk: The 'Gipsy' Fortune Teller Machine in Brighton Museum - Brighton & Hove Museums. Read on · Museum
- ctpost.com: Fortune-telling machines popular amusements beginning in the 1930s. Read on · Reference
- lasvegas.citycast.fm: The Zoltar Fortune Telling Machine is Made in Boulder City - City Cast Las Vegas. Read on · Reference
- reviewjournal.com: Vintage fortune-telling machines make ‘Big’ money | Home and Garden | Life. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- sfomuseum.org: The Automatic Age: Coin-Operated Machines | SFO Museum. Read on · Museum
- theguardian.com: Punch bags, penny pushers and Hillbilly shootouts: the 10 best classic seaside arcade machines | Games | The Guardian. Read on · Reference
- gutenberg.org: An Attempt to Analyse the Automaton Chess Player of Mr. De Kempelen. Read on · Primary text
- gutenberg.org: Automata Old and New. Read on · Primary text
- National Public Radio: Fortune Telling Machine Worth A Fortune : NPR. Read on · Reference