Year: ~1964
Company: 日本娯楽物産 (Nihon Goraku Bussan) & 日本機械製造 (Nihon Kikai Seizo — Sega)
This post is an inquiry into a mystery. It is mostly speculation, but I feel the need to lay out my research and assumptions.
For a long while now, this has made me very curious:
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| Western Gun - ウェスタン・ガン |
Sega 1966 Catalogue
This is from the 1966 Sega catalogue. We find it in the list of gun games:
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| gun games from the 1966 Sega catalogue |
Immediately we see how drastically different the price of Western Gun is. 75,000 yen vs 250,000 yen for Sega's Jungle Gun or Space Ace? This tells us that Western Gun is not a full-sized arcade machine. At only 25% the cost of a full arcade game, this must be a counter game or similar novelty. At that price, it is probably mechanical.
Western Gun is also offered in the "Special Package Sales" section, where they seem to be clearing out machines with bulk discounts. The Sega 1000 Jukebox was from 1960.
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| Special Package Sales from the 1966 Sega catalogue |
This suggests that the game was well past it's prime by 1966, as Sega is trying to unload it alongside their 1960 jukebox.
There are no further public documents that refer to Sega's Western Gun, so currently this appearance in 1966 was the final known reference. (technically, also the first known reference, too.) I believe that if it was being sold in 1967 that we would have seen references to it elsewhere, as Sega had a large global marketing push in 1967.
What's in a name?
I have not seen any arcade machine named "Western Gun", at least not until Taito released their TTL videogame Western Gun in 1975.
In 1956 David Rosen began importing games into Japan, with Seeburg's 1947 Shoot The Bear being a big hit. In some versions of the Mike Munves' catalogues it was referred to as Bear Gun.
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| 1947 Shoot The Bear by Seeburg aka Bear Gun |
Most notably, in the 1961 Rosen Enterprises (Tokyo) catalogue it is labeled as Bear Gun. There is a "Shoot The Bear" marquee normally included, but we don't see it appear in Japan.
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| Bear Gun in the 1961 Rosen Enterprises catalogue |
Perhaps continuing this naming pattern, Sega released Jungle Gun and Space Gun. (In the USA, there was Dale Gun, Jet Gun, Jungle Gun, Space Gun, Carnival Gun, etc.) With this kind of very theme-direct naming convention, I am looking for a game that is either titled Western Gun, or a western-style gun game that was referred to as Western Gun in Japan.
Countertop games in Japan
I have added "Countertop games" as a category in my eremeka tool. Beyond the early cork and arrow venders, there are not many there so far.
In the 1961 Rosen Enterprises catalogue there are two imported countertop games on offer:
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| this is not the most common appearance of an ABT Challenger body |
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| Challenger by ABT, with the rocketship-style side art |
Neither of these are "western" themed, but this is what I think of when I see a machine that is 25% the price of a full arcade machine. Countertop games have a long history of being an affordable alternative.
In the 1956 Mike Munves catalogue, Bear Gun has a price of $195 and the brand new Challenger by ABT is listed as $55, almost 25% of the Bear Gun price. We can't take these numbers as real evidence, however, since they were from years earlier and the prices of items that have been out for a few years tend to drop precipitously.
For example, in 1956 the Supreme Bulls Eye is listed as $100 for the floor-standing model, and for only $25 more one could get an old upright Exhibit gun game.
But I still think the pricing of Western Gun hints that it must be a similar countertop mechanical gun game.
I think in order to go further, we must give a quick overview of ...
The JF Frantz gun games
In 1956 JF Frantz purchased the ABT gun games to enter into the world of shooting games.
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| Cash Box 1956-03-03 |
In 1958, Dodge City is announced. It is a countertop gun game with a Western theme, but it would soon be overwhelmed by newer Frantz games with tweaked designs.
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| Cash Box 1958-12-20 |
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| Cash Box 1959-01-10 |
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| Cash Box 1959-04-11 |
In December 1959, Frantz announced that the countertop Dodge City would now have 4 versions with stands.
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| Cash Box 1959-12-05 |
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| Cash Box 1959-12-05 |
At the beginning of 1960, Frantz began a promotional program to try and sell Dodge City in bulk, 25+ units at a time.
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| Cash Box 1960-01-30 |
I am unsure if the move was out of a need to move the units out, but by the end of 1960 Frantz had announced their next gun game, New Frontier.
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| Cash Box 1960-12-10 |
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| Cash Box 1961-08-05 |
By the end of 1961 Frantz had at least one more model on the floor with U.S. Marshall. (I do not know of 'Trickshooter') U.S. Marshall would prove be an iconic hit for the company.
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| Cash Box 1961-12-09 |
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| Cash Box 1962-12-29 I have no idea what the SOB (Save Our Business) game is or if it's just a joke, but I'd love to know more. |
This “Save Our Business” thing that every time I asked about it, Johnny would change the subject. Here in the States, S.O.B. is also slang for “Son of a Bitch”. I never could see the tie in with any machine. We found stacks of small printed stencils that say S.O.B. but could never find any direct reference to them. It could have been a promotion for a local (Chicago) operator who was putting his machines in businesses that needed $$$ help, and 50% of the coins played could make a difference. We too are curious about this SOB thing.
My “Trick Shot” is slightly different than the one in the photo. It has no front handle or knob. It uses the U.S. Marshal gun. The side graphics are simple. A cowboy holding a hand mirror and shooting at a target over his shoulder. The targets are modified “Kicker Catcher” score wheels to count how many times you hit each of 3 targets.
The New Frontier was being advertised for sale in Japan as late as 1979!
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| Coin Journal 1979 - sold by 日本商事 (Nippon Shoji) |
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| Game Machine 1979-05-01 |
This is how they were advertised in North America in the 1980s:
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| US Marshall (left) was sold for at least 2 decades. |
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| this excerpt from a parts flyer illustrates how they sold a number of models which used the same parts |
Colt
I have been curious about this Japanese machine with the title Colt:
We know this game existed in Japan in at least 1966, since we can see it in an episode of Ultraman:
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| 1966 ウルトラマン 第10話 謎の恐竜基地 (Ultraman Episode 10 Mysterious Dinosaur Base) |
This appears to be a JF Frantz gun game with a custom cabinet, stand, and marquee. I do not think this was an American game since I doubt any USA company could get away with naming a machine after a famous gun brand that was over 100 years old at that time.
Look at the gun and coin mech on Colt:
This matches the U.S. Marshall-style gun + coin mechanism, with the coin acceptor immediately to the right of the gun. This was an improvement over Dodge City (and ABT games, like Challenger earlier in this post) where the penny was insert via a slot in the gun. Having the coin acceptor separated would make it possible to change the price.
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| U.S. Marshall gun and coin mech assembly |
This is what the classic ABT gun mechanism looked like, with a slot for the penny on the right of the barrel:
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| ABT gun mechanism / coin slot |
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| source: Target Skill by ABT |
The Colt cabinet is of a very unique design and I think it must have been built specifically for this game. There are currently no clues as to who made it or sold it, nor if they had imported the gun parts from Frantz.
Is this the Western Gun we are searching for? Possibly, but I believe if the cabinet has COLT brazenly displayed across it, the Sega catalogue would have included it under the name Colt. They were very good at selling products with their accurate English names. Why would they change it this time?
乾いた花 - Pale Flower
The movie 乾いた花 was released in 1964 and in the bowling alley scene we can glance at the concessions counter and notice something of interest. (check out the full arcade exploration of Pale Flower over here)
In this shot we can barely see it but there is a slight round area past where the butt of the gun is, indicating that there is a knob:
Here is an early promotional photograph of Dodge City. Please ignore the curve at the back of the cabinet, that's due to the photograph bending.
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| 1959 Dodge City by JF Frantz |
The machine in Pale Flower seems to match up quite well with Dodge City! Except, one notable exception: Dodge City always has a marquee. There are even two different types (the above photo has what I'm told is the old style marquee,) with just a slight difference in the shape of the mounting brackets.
Is there a chance someone deliberately removed the marquee of a game released just a few years early? Perhaps. But another possibility is that what we see in Pale Flower is indeed Sega's Western Gun, and Sega made a faithful copy of Frantz's Dodge City game. As was sometimes the case, especially for some companies in Japan in the 1960s, the mechanisms themselves could have been imported and a slightly different game was sold in Japan.
In the Sega in the 1960s article, we see how many of the early Sega electromechanical machines were based on designs from around the world.
Other manufacturers, like with Satomi's Pony Derby or Skee Ball, seemed to have purchased parts from foreign companies and reworked their designs slightly for the Japanese market. It would not be shocking to discover a similar arrangement at work here, especially with ABT focusing on selling the gun parts. (I am assuming they are still operating and manufacturing parts, as per the article about the sale to Frantz)
Further investigation needed
This is a very ambiguous case and I will need to discover more evidence before I can rule out or confirm this possibility.
This is a countertop gun game with a Western theme, out of VERY FEW OPTIONS for what Western Gun could possibly be. While it is encouraging to note that the game in Pale Flower does not have the Dodge City marquee, this is still circumstantial evidence.
A few things to note for future research:
The building in the Dodge City machines has the title "GOLD GULCH SALOON".
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| "GOLD GULCH SALOON" on Dodge City |
In all of the later machines I've seen, like U.S. Marshall, it has been renamed to "SILVER DOLLAR"
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| "SILVER DOLLAR" in all but the earliest Frantz gun games |
Only the Dodge City games have the coin slot in the gun, with the knob in the lower right. If the game in Pale Flower is Western Gun, then both it and Dodge City have a silhouette of a shooting cowboy on each side.
Here is a vintage copy of Dodge City. Or maybe it's Western Gun? At least on this machine, I can see that the paint difference at the top side edge suggests it might have had a marquee at some point.
Gameplay of Dodge City:
Since this game is anchored by the 1964 movie, we are currently assigning the companies to Nihon Goraku Bussan and Nihon Kikai Seizo.
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