Tokens and Quarters and Mechs!

WarLordAG

Active member
Joined
Feb 11, 2007
Messages
1,070
Reaction score
9
Location
Newark, Ohio
I've been tossing around the idea of moving over to either quarters or tokens.
I previously was on quarters and it worked ok, it's just a lot more work and money to keep these games going on them. It was a great way to save extra money via all the quarters though.

The more games I acquire it seems like it'd be easier to just have them back on tokens or quarters as you don't have to worry about whether or not the game offers free play.

Tokens seem very viable, however my main concern, is there a place for cheap token mechs? I know you can modify a quarter mech to accept tokens, but why bother if I can find mechs at a reasonable price. What is the standard token everyone uses? .900?

Quarters are easy and I know where to get quarters.

Any thoughts on this from anyone else? All the games need to operate the same, and it's a shame some games don't offer free play.
 
Have you posted in the WTB section? You should get a lot of responses there.

I use the metal Coin Mech brand mechs because they can easily be modified to accept quarters or .984 tokens. I have been on freeplay for most of my games, but I'm going to switch to quarters/tokens soon. Quarters when it's just me and my friends, and tokens when I have a party (quartes will disappear). All my doors have locks and I've been loading the buckets up with quarters because it provides the most important part of the "coin mech" sound.

Also, no state quarters allowed.
 
Tokens are great, but there will be jamming to deal with, especially if you have kids in the arcade. If one tokens doesn't get the game to start, that must mean 10 will...

You can get cheap tokens from Noice and scan eBay or KLOV for mechs. I use Immonex .900 because they are the easiest to clean/unjam, but also a little more pricey up front. I bought 20 or so at around $5 each (NOS) and felt that was fair.

Metal ones you should get cheap or even free IMHO, unless they are NOS. As for token size, .900 mechs seem to be the hardest one to find, I'd go with the larger size used by the MAME guys, .950 I think.
 
I run 0.900 tokens. Just adjust them to be more tolerant and not too much trouble with jams. You can also easily modify the metal ones to take any size token/coin. Just take out the cams and bend the reject chute out.
I've got a bunch of extra 0.900 mech if anyone wants some. Wasn't thinking free though. ;)
 
.984. I wouldn't be overly worried about jamming. Yeah, it happens sometimes but I would say that in my own gameroom it's a pretty minimal problem. I don't see much point in buying mechs designed for .984. Virtually every game I've gotten has already had quarter mechs, and they're pretty easy to convert, especially once you've done several of them.

I used to spend the time to convert the mechs in such a way as they naturally work correctly for .984's. Lately I've taken the lazy/easy approach of squirting some glue from a glue gun where the reject slot is (creating a ramp to guide it to the accept slot). That's worked really well for me. Other than that you just need to make sure the slightly larger than a quarter .984 can fit through the input slot, and then the cradle properly dumps. It's really pretty easy.

I think there was someone here (other than noice) selling .984's at a pretty reasonable price in the last few weeks. You might check to see if those are still available.
 
One thing to consider about 0.984 is that it won't fit through the faceplate on midway coin doors. Some are already filed out but if they aren't you will need to widen them yourself.
 
984 here. If you can score some Immonex mechs, they are a great option. Asahi-Seiko mechs are a pain to dial in, but work great once you're done. I'm so glad I went to tokens.
 
I use .900s. No particular reason other than I found a dozen mechs and 500 tokens for a good deal on eBay back when I started.

I actually could use some more mechs, come to think of it. What kind of price are you thinking, whammoed?
 
The title of this thread is incomplete.
It should say Tokens and Quarters and Mechs Oh My.:p
 
I just use quarters in my game. I guess since I only have 2 games up there it makes it a lot easier to handle. I think I have close to $20 in quarters or so. There is just something about actually hearing a coin clunk in the machine and then later pouring out the overflowing (well, not quite) coin bucket.

Tokens are too much trouble.
 
The title of this thread is incomplete.
It should say Tokens and Quarters and Mechs Oh My.:p

Came in to post this, I was disappointed when at least the first line of the OP wasn't "oh my". :)

Also, no state quarters allowed.

Amen to this. I've actually got it set right now so there's nothing older than quarters that could have actually been put in them the day the oldest one hit a location (94). No idea how many are in the buckets right now, but it's quite a few. It helps that I'm also a coin collector and have a ton of change that I'd set aside to go through for errors, so I had a pretty good sized pool to begin with. :)
 
If you're interested in .984 mechs, I have 3 here at my desk. I was planning to switch my games over, but never did. Don't remember what I paid for them, and no clue what they're worth, but if you're interested in them shoot me a PM.
 
Amen to this. I've actually got it set right now so there's nothing older than quarters that could have actually been put in them the day the oldest one hit a location (94). No idea how many are in the buckets right now, but it's quite a few. It helps that I'm also a coin collector and have a ton of change that I'd set aside to go through for errors, so I had a pretty good sized pool to begin with. :)

That's hardcore.

What I've been doing is getting $100 in quarters from the bank, sorting out the weirdos and taking them back to the coin counter at the bank, depositing the money and getting more quarters. They must think I'm crazy. I usually get about half "good" quarters per load.

As a side note, I've always wondered what would happen if I asked for $100 in quarters, them promptly ran them through the coin counter (for free!) and exchanged the slip for $100 in more quarters, and repeat the process. Technically you could do that all day for free and waste their time.
 
Last edited:
I just use quarters in my game. I guess since I only have 2 games up there it makes it a lot easier to handle. I think I have close to $20 in quarters or so. There is just something about actually hearing a coin clunk in the machine and then later pouring out the overflowing (well, not quite) coin bucket.

Tokens are too much trouble.

Yes, but back in the day if tokens walked out in the pockets of customers it was considered profit. You are "buying" tokens for .25 that cost <.05 to make in volume. If you use quarters and they walk out, you loose money. Just sayin'
 
That's hardcore.

What I've been doing is getting $100 in quarters from the bank, sorting out the weirdos and taking them back to the coin counter at the bank, depositing the money and getting more quarters. They must think I'm crazy. I usually get about half "good" quarters per load.

As a side note, I've always wondered what would happen if I asked for $100 in quarters, them promptly ran them through the coin counter (for free!) and exchanged the slip for $100 in more quarters, and repeat the process. Technically you could do that all day for free and waste their time.

Not sure if it's different at a bank, but I think most of those counting machines take a percentage of what you're putting in. A friend of mine kept taking his to the machine at the grocery store and going "man I thought I had more than that in here". I was having a good enough time laughing that I let him do it a few more times just so he'd call me confused again. :)

If you're going to go through rolls like that, I would strongly suggest designating a particular branch of your bank as your dump spot. Get rolls from any other branch, go through them, deposit whatever you're not keeping at the dump spot. Regularly depositing rolls at your favorite branch only really annoys the tellers there, and they may just tell you "no" when you ask for rolls if they know they're just going to see them again. Then they have a bunch more crap they have to count through at the end of the day and if they see the same face bringing it to them, they're less enthusiastic about helping with anything else. I know a lot of folks who get $50 boxes of pennies (if collecting pennies is there thing), will go through them to look for errors, varieties, strange stuff, whatever, and then reroll and deposit the rest. They do this at least once a week if not more, depending on the time they have on their hands (most are retired). The unanimous number one tip from roll searchers (of nickles/dimes/half dollars too, not just the lincoln guys) is to designate one branch of your bank as your dump site and never do any other type of business there if you can help it.
 
Yeah, the Penny Arcade at TD Bank is free, I guess they figure you'll deposit the money in their bank anyway.

I thought about using one branch as a dump spot. But there's really no extra effort for the tellers, the coins get rolled automatically. It's actually less effort to give me rolls of quarters too, they just grab a $100 tray and dump it on the counter.

Not sure if it's different at a bank, but I think most of those counting machines take a percentage of what you're putting in. A friend of mine kept taking his to the machine at the grocery store and going "man I thought I had more than that in here". I was having a good enough time laughing that I let him do it a few more times just so he'd call me confused again. :)

If you're going to go through rolls like that, I would strongly suggest designating a particular branch of your bank as your dump spot. Get rolls from any other branch, go through them, deposit whatever you're not keeping at the dump spot. Regularly depositing rolls at your favorite branch only really annoys the tellers there, and they may just tell you "no" when you ask for rolls if they know they're just going to see them again. Then they have a bunch more crap they have to count through at the end of the day and if they see the same face bringing it to them, they're less enthusiastic about helping with anything else. I know a lot of folks who get $50 boxes of pennies (if collecting pennies is there thing), will go through them to look for errors, varieties, strange stuff, whatever, and then reroll and deposit the rest. They do this at least once a week if not more, depending on the time they have on their hands (most are retired). The unanimous number one tip from roll searchers (of nickles/dimes/half dollars too, not just the lincoln guys) is to designate one branch of your bank as your dump site and never do any other type of business there if you can help it.
 
Yeah, the Penny Arcade at TD Bank is free, I guess they figure you'll deposit the money in their bank anyway.

I thought about using one branch as a dump spot. But there's really no extra effort for the tellers, the coins get rolled automatically. It's actually less effort to give me rolls of quarters too, they just grab a $100 tray and dump it on the counter.

It's not that there's really much extra work in it for them they just don't want to keep handing out rolls they're going to see back in a very short time period. Plus if you deposit and then pick up more rolls all at the same branch you're gonna wind up with the same ones you didn't want back over and over again. :) I'm seeing some of the roll searchers mention the counting machines, if those just roll them and keep them in the machine the dump branch probably won't get irritated but at that point it's more about not getting the same coins back.

For truly hardcore roll searching (and a way bigger amount of liquid capital than I generally have to play with) check out the posts by Modern Day Miner at: http://forums.silverseek.com/showthread.php?6778-Coin-roll-Hunting . I just had a ton of change I'd not gone through, this guy has accounts at a bunch of different banks and a fallow field branch changing system. :) Of course if you find anything weird (i.e. http://askaboutcoins.com/2010/03/found-in-rolls-die-varieties/ or http://askaboutcoins.com/2010/03/found-in-rolls-errors/ or http://askaboutcoins.com/2010/03/found-in-rolls-united-states-quarter-dollars/ ) let me know :D
 
Last edited:
I run 984s, but one thing I've discovered is that they won't fit in a Gottlieb system 1 coin door. Does anyone know if there were coin slot setups for those pins that'd fit a 984 token?
 
Back
Top Bottom