It's going to be a push chute, similar to the pictures below. Unfortunately, my only relevant push chute pics are from a game waiting to be rebuilt, and so the push chute in my pics is missing some stuff. And, it even has a bent slide. Not a big help, I know, but at least it gives you an idea of what you'll be dealing with.

push chute front (resized).jpg

push chute back (resized).jpg

Among other things, the chute in the pics is missing the long return spring that causes the push chute to return to the full "out" position after the player pushes it in to start a new game. When replacing that return spring, I usually need to link two medium-long springs together from my spring supply box (thank you Harbor Freight) to create a workable replacement spring for the push chute.

You should also be aware that these old push chutes can be tricky to work with if you are not familiar with them. What I usually find is that someone has removed the parts of the chute that locks it, so that the chute is on "free play" - meaning you can just push the chute in without money. That's OK, but you won't be able to make the chute work to take money unless you have a replacement salvage chute with the parts you need. And, even when a chute has all the parts, there are a couple of wear spots that often make the chute jam and/or refuse to work reliably. So if you're lucky, the fix to the chute will be simple, and if you're not so lucky, it may be challenging to get it working smoothly. If the owner doesn't mind the machine being on free play, it will be much easier to get the chute working for that purpose.

The push chute mech itself is really pretty simple, and you can dis-assemble it with basic hand tools. Basically it's a long flat metal slide that moves in and out within a frame. The key parts of a fully working mech include a small reversing ratchet that rides a sawtooth, usually on the left-hand edge of the slide. This ratchet ensures the slide must be pushed all the way in before it will come back out, and vice-versa. There is also at least one locking dog. The dog is a small metal arm that rides the right-hand edge of the slide. It is spring-loaded and will move into a notch in the slide to lock it and prevent it from being pushed in. When a solid coin is present in the slide, the coin holds back the dog so that the slide doesn't lock as it's being pushed in. There is also usually a magnet to detect slugs. The magnet basically pulls the slug out of position as the slide is pushed in so that the dog still engages to lock the slide.

On push chutes with a free play feature, which Olde King Cole will have, there is a lever extending below the push chute that is connected to the locking dog. When the slide is fully out, the dog is held back and the lever is in the up position. As the slide is pushed in, if there is no coin, the dog moves into the notch in the slide and the lever drops down. There is a small relay coil and armature mounted under the push chute. When there are free plays on the machine, the relay will energize and pull in its armature, causing a lip on the armature to be positioned directly below the lever under the chute. As the chute is pushed in, the lever under the chute is held in the up position by the armature, and this holds back the locking dog and allows the slide to be pushed in without a coin.

Some push chutes have an escrow pocket. This pocket displays the previous coin that was inserted into the machine. When a new coin is inserted, the coin in the escrow pocket is ejected into the cash pan, and the latest coin drops into the escrow pocket. This feature is intended to discourage the use of slugs, since the attendant can come up and check that a player has used a legitimate coin while the player is still playing the game. Escrow pockets were also important on payout machines, to confirm that a winning player didn't use a slug (which would void their winnings).

As far as the actual game reset goes, the push chute on this era of machine doesn't do anything besides push a large metal slide mounted to the underside of the playfield. The movement of that slide does all the work of resetting the relay banks, actuating the score reset, resetting feature steppers, and dumping the balls so the player can play.

As for the stuff inside the machine, these games are not all that different from the later Gottlieb EMs. There's a transformer and a score motor and relays and coils and lamps and a lot of wiring. You'll notice all the stuff is a bit more primitive than their later counterparts - EM guts evolved over the years - but it's basically the same stuff.

One thing that happens often that can be vexing, if you are not used to these really old games, is that the solder joints where the wires attach to the switch lugs can be rather brittle with age. So if you pull on a wire, or stress a wire at one of its solder joints, it might pop right off. So be on the alert for that.

All that said, they are really interesting to work on, and I think that you're lucky to have the opportunity to see one up close.

- TimMe