Charles Fey

Charles August Fey ( born February 2, 1862 as Augustinus Josephus Fey in the Bavarian Vöhringen / Iller, † November 10, 1944 in San Francisco ) was an American inventor of German origin. He is best known as the inventor of the so-called one-armed bandits (English Slot Machine ), the most popular mechanical slot machines in the world.

Life

Childhood and youth

Fey was born in 1862 as a sixteenth child and youngest son of a wealthy family little. At the age of 14 he attended his school holidays his brother Edmund in Munich and was briefly working in a tool factory. There he discovered early his talent and his passion for mechanics.

Emigration and early years in the United States

To escape his patriarchal home and forestall the invitation to the Bavarian military to Fey decided to follow the age of 15 his uncle in the United States. However, he had not been together enough money for the expensive crossing in the U.S. and so took him first to France and England. During these years he worked among others with a manufacturer for intercom systems and as a toolmaker for nautical instruments. After 5 years in London, he had finally saved enough money for passage to America and sailed to New York. In the New World arrived, he initially lived with his uncle in New Jersey. When he emigrated with his family to Germany to Fey decided to leave the East Coast and travel to California. In 1885 he arrived in San Francisco and quickly found work as a mechanic. But a short time later he became so ill with tuberculosis, so the doctors gave him only less than a year to live. Miraculously, he recovered from the disease, however, and found a permanent position with the California Electric Works Company. He married Marie Volkmar, with whom he had three daughters and a son and changed his name to Charles 1889 August Fey.

Development of the Slot Machine

In his spare time tinkering around in his workshop Fey often on various machines around to explore their functions and improve their own ideas. As the passionate gamblers again once had too little money for the casino one night of the year 1887, came to him in his workshop with the idea to build a game machine with 3 different coils that rotate independently of each other, as soon as you pull a lever and automatically the profit pays off. At that time there were already a number of mechanical slot machines, but which often had a complicated mechanism with 5 reels and symbols from the poker. However, the large number of different winning combinations led to mechanically unsolvable problems in the distribution of profits. Fey simplified the automatic mechanism, by using his machine on 3 reels with 5 symbols - horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and a Liberty Bell ( Liberty Bell) - limited and thus brought about the first working automatic payout mechanism.

Fey called his machine " Liberty Bell " until later the name Slot Machine prevailed. It quickly became the best-known and most popular slot machines in the U.S. and so Charles Fey founded in 1895 in Berkeley his own company and continuously improved his invention. Fey did not sell his Liberty Bell, but rented it to casinos and saloons based on a 50/50 division of profit. Since Fey could not satisfy even the great demand, he did in 1907 with the Chicago Mills Novelty Company to Company " Bell Machines". Fey considered this merger later than big mistake, however, another ground-breaking machines brought the company in 1910 with the so -called " Fruit Machine " out, in which the number of symbols was extended by fruit.

Retirement

Fey remained for many years in the company and developed countless new and improved slot machines, before he retired at the age of 82 years. Just 10 months later he died of pneumonia.

Appreciation

Charles Fey could never beat great profit from his invention during his lifetime, and also due recognitions were denied him to the last. In the north of Market Street in San Francisco is since 1984 a memorial plaque in the form of " California State Historical Landmark # 937 ." Was at the same place from 1897 to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 Feys manufactory. In October 1997, the city fathers of Vöhringen placed a commemorative plaque on Fey's Birthplace. Fey's birth house is now home to the youth center of the city.