Sega Bell

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Sega Bell

Developer: Sega

Release	Date	RRP	Code

The Sega Bell is the earliest model series of slot machines to be released by Service Games.

The Sega Bell is based on the High Top slot machines manufactured by Mills in the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1956 Service Games acquired the rights to distribute High Top machines in the "Pacific Ocean area" (which at the time included Japan, Korea, Formosa (modern day Taiwan), the Philippines and the Japanese islands of Okinawa, which due to a large US military presence is likely to have been counted as an entirely separate entity). It then set about re-branding these machines Sega Bell around 1957 (alongside Mini-Sega machines, based on the 1938 Vest Pocket specification).

It is thought that Sega Bells, like later slot machines and many of its rivals, were often bespoke units built to suit a customers' needs, so very few machines can be considered identical in terms of aesthetics. From a mechanical point of view, however, the machine is virtually identical to its High Top counterpart, just likely using materials sourced from Japan as opposed to imported from North America.

Sega Bells are found set up for US dollar cents (usually 10¢) as many were sold to US military bases across the pacific. Around 1960 a distribution chain was also established to bring Sega Bells to the United Kingdom, usually taking 6d (sixpence in pre-decimal money; models may have been converted in the 1970s).