Psychic Machine

During the 1920 to 32 era a man by the name of William Gent made a “psychic” vending machine which was supposed to be a fortune teller. This proved to be extremely popular and he marketed it through the William Gent Vending Company.

Known to one and all as the Grandmother Prediction fortune telling machines these psychic machines found their way all over to appear in their little wooden cabinets. Actually they weren’t so little. They stood higher than a man and has a life like head which moved side to side in a mechanical movement as the hands moved over the fortune telling cards until it chose one.  The figure even appeared to breath.  Carefully dressed up with grey wig and all the appearance of a grandmother type figure, the booths always drew the crowds. Commonly known as the Gent Grandma these machines of course got copied by other companies.  They were too popular not to be.  One of the companies that copied them was the International Motoscope company.  The only major difference they made was to the actual cabinet they were housed in. I can remember as a child seeing one of these machines on Brighton pier many moons ago. You put your coin in and the head seemed to go looking at the cards and the hands moved over until it chose one psychic card which was presented to you.  With the rise again in popularity of the psychic phenomena, this type of machine made its reappearance during the 1970’s.  These were produced by the Chicagoland Slot Machine Company as well as Mike Munves.  With the rise again in the fortunes of the psychic I foresee that once again someone will revive these machines, probably with a computer chip in them and updated to be even more lifelike and with more movements to present you with you modern day fortune card.  The basic principal will still be the same except it will probably be made in China. Arcades are still the fashion although it is more probable that it could also be made as a attachment to some or other computer game.  It would be a case of bringing it up to date and presenting it as something new to the modern day kids as if it was something totally new. I would personally still get a kick out of seeing one of the old machines in action again. I believe there are still some of them around although they are probably in museums by now.

In many ways these psychic machines reminded me of Madame Tussauds. The Grandma had that same sort of unnatural natural appearance.  The movements were very mechanical as they worked on a kind of clockwork mechanism performing the same actions over and over once the coin was inserted. They definitely have a nostalgic feeling to them.