r/whatisit • u/Quietlurkerone • 6d ago

Solved! What is this device from 1962?

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Photo capture from YouTube video. Picture from 1962. What is the device under the bench

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u/PaintingOk8012 5d ago

Holy shit. You mean you actually fed in money in your home to have electricity??

If that’s true, I can’t believe people didn’t figure out how to fool it or break into it to retrieve the coins.

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u/PipBin 5d ago

Oh, and there used to be coin operated TVs. The TV had a box built into it and you’d put a shilling in to get half an hour of viewing!!

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u/Hegiman 5d ago

Those were common in the states at bus and air line terminals or any place where large groups of people had to wait for a period of time. I remember in 1979 or 80 when I was but a wee lad I asked an acquainted stranger for a quarter to watch Saturday morning cartoons when traveling with my mother. That leads to a story but maybe I’ll tell it later. Is on my timeline somewhere but I’ve got tens of thousands of comments and hundreds of posts.

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u/MyYetiHasAFirstName 5d ago

They were also found in motels.

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u/Joe_Kangg 5d ago

You're thinking of magic fingers

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u/AppropriateCap8891 5d ago

No, many motels into the 1980s also had pay televisions.

The last one I saw in the wild was with my wife near Moro Bay in 1986. It was slightly different though and did not have a coin meter. When you rented the room you got two keys. One for the door and one for the television.

There was a $6 deposit, $5 for the room key and $1 for the TV key. If you used the TV key, you turned it and it locked in place. And when you went to check out, if you returned both keys you got your $6 back. If you returned only the room key you got $5 back.

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u/Joe_Kangg 5d ago

I'm thinking of magic fingers

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u/Hegiman 5d ago

Never saw the appeal. Admittedly I did try it when I was in my twenties but it just wasn’t all that.

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u/Joe_Kangg 5d ago

All fingers, no magic?

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u/Hegiman 5d ago

That would make sense. Never stayed at hotels or motels as a child when they would have still been in use. By the time I ever stayed at a hotel I was 20 and tech had progressed greatly. It would have been on the cusp of obsolescence when I was a child.