- Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Beach
- Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Hove
- Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton London
“I came down to Brighton for the weekend to see my cousin who lived in Kemptown, and took my camera, and went down the seafront. Usually the best way for me to take photos is just to go and explore with a fresh mind like a blank canvas.
Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Beach
Old fashioned Mystic Meg
I found the penny arcade museum, and saw this machine. It looked like an old-fashioned Mystic Meg; a big kitsch, a bit over the top and funfair-ish. I was so fascinated by it I took a whole role of film – people thought I was barmy! When you put your money in you get a card. You put in your date of birth and you get a funny message.
Hotels near Museum of Penny Slot Machines, Brighton on Tripadvisor: Find 59,118 traveler reviews, 28,990 candid photos, and prices for 1,930 hotels near Museum of Penny Slot Machines in Brighton. Having a go at Brighton antique old penny arcade machines.Big as old 1p coins.Finally uploading the video from a month ago! ^^ Might upload more videos fro.
The Penny Arcade Museum
The Penny Arcade Museum is on the seafront as you go past the arches, along from the artists’ galleries. I took the photo over three years ago, and I’m not sure if the machine is still there. I included the photo in my Final Photography Project, for my BTEC National Diploma in Design (Photography) course.”
Comments about this page
Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Hove
I see a Haunted Graveyard machine on your gallery. Have you got any other working models there?
Went there last week and it was CLOSED for the Winter.
In this guest post, University of Brighton student Olivia Terry discusses a clairvoyant exhibit in Brighton Museum, and how it records the history of the English seaside resort.
Tucked behind the entrance door of the Images of Brighton Gallery in Brighton Museum is a fortune-teller machine. The nearby caption titles this exhibit as “The Gipsy Fortune-Teller Slot Machine” which once resided on the Palace Pier and dates from the early 1930s. Trapped in a tall yellow and blue box is a one-eyed woman, decked out in gaudy jewelry seemingly busy writing fortunes with a quill. On the outside, the fortune-teller invites her audience to place a penny in the appropriate gender slot, and there are knobs that can be adjusted to select the viewer’s birth month. Towards the base of the box, a fortune was supposed to shoot out of a red aperture with golden cursive writing stating “tickets here” above it.
Machines like this were once a big part of the British seaside resort holiday culture. People would come from all over to take part in the fun that was seaside amusement parks and indulge in the thrills it had to offer. However, during the 1950s, amusement parks reached their peak in popularity when people started finding newer ways to entertain themselves such as visiting cinemas, concert halls and live shows, and the massive cost of the Second World War weighed heavily on the funding for amusement parks. Anya Chapman states ‘the decline in demand led to the closure of many attractions, tourist infrastructure and accommodation from the 1970s onwards,’ so novelty machines like the “Gipsy Fortune-Teller Slot Machine” would often become decrepit due to lack of upkeep.
Despite the near extinction of old amusement park games, there has been a rise in so-called ‘old penny’ arcades. These celebrate the nostalgia of antique slot machines similar to the Gipsy and now more than 20 reside in towns in Britain, the majority of them in seaside towns. Brighton has one fifty yards from Brighton Pier called “Mechanical Memories Museum”, and it contains machines ranging from the 1900s to the 1960s, including a fortune-teller, similar to this one in Brighton Museum. It is through old arcade games that we may understand Brighton’s rich history of being a town known for its many amusements, fun, and cheap thrills.
Olivia Terry, student on BA (Hons) Fashion and Dress History, University of Brighton
Bibliography
Chapman, Anya, “ “The ‘Heritagisation’ of the British Seaside Resort: The Rise of the ‘Old Penny Arcade,’” Journal of Heritage Tourism (2011) : (n.p) Taylor and Francis Online. Web. 17 Oct 2018.
“Mechanical Memories Museum.” Steam Heritage, Steam Heritage Publishing Ltd. (n.d) Web. 17 Oct 2018. https://www.steamheritage.co.uk