~1965 クレミー (Cranie) by 天龍工業 (Tenryu Industry)

Name: クレミー (Cranie)
Year: ~1965
Company: 天龍工業 (Tenryu Industry)

This is an iconic crane machine of the mid 1960s.  Sega's Skill Diga came out in 1965, modeled after Italian crane machines that were copies of the USA Hollycranes, where they are floor-based crane machines.  Cranie was instead an upright crane machine, with more in common with the 1930s crane machines of France and USA, except in a very space-age design for the 1960s.

For the longest time I did not know who made this machine, but it was recently pointed out to me by accs2014 (archive), who learned it from nazox2016.  Cranie appears on the website of 天龍工業 (Tenryu Industry)!

Tenryu website (archive)

Unfortunately the exact year is not specified, but based on that timeline I will say "approximately 1965".  It might be earlier!  I do not think this is a far-off assumption, as we know this machine appears in the 1966 Senyo Kogyo catalogue:

excerpt from the 1966 Senyo Kogyo catalogue, from a for-sale listing

Cranie appears in a number of photographs.  It must have been fairly successful in the mid-1960s.

found via 昭和～平成前期のホテルや旅館などのパンフレット 

via yomogi2017

found via 昭和～平成前期のホテルや旅館などのパンフレット 
(notice the machine on the far-right)

via yomogi2017

via yomogi2017

It also appears in a monochrome 三協音機 (Sankyo Onkyi) catalogue from ~1968:

There is at least one known copy of this machine that survives, at 飛騨高山レトロミュージアム (Hida Takayama Retro Museum):

@showa_retromuseum

The iconic marquee and blue/red/white trim is missing, but it is the same machine!

showa_retromuseum

There are two unknown crane machines that share some visual similarities, and also existed in the 1960s:

I believe it says オニクレーン (Oni crane) though I might be wrong

This machine has the same colour patterning around the top, same red body, same marquee font.  It is a square body instead of rounded, and while the crane's base is the same thick red column, the upper portion of the crane does not appear to be yellow.

That crop is taken from this photograph:

found via 昭和～平成前期のホテルや旅館などのパンフレット 

And one more:

This crane shares the same central red column, and perhaps even the yellow crane piece on top, though it's easy to misinterpret an image this small.  The legs are side-attached wooden legs, the kind you'd find on a 1950s pinball machine.

This crop comes from this image:

found via 昭和～平成前期のホテルや旅館などのパンフレット