Your post reminded me of a story about a find I made last year. While at the local flea market early on the first day I ran into a European (wall mount) slot machine. As I was looking at it someone else (another dealer I think)came up and offered to buy it but wanted to pay by check and didn't have their checkbook with them. I told the dealer not to bother since it was already sold to me. I figured for $50 I would take my chances. Since the labeling on the machine was in German I figured it must take German money. So I went to my local coin shop and bought one of each denomination of German coin that looked to be the right size. I finally figured out that it took old 10 pfennig coins from the 1950's. After a few days of internet searching and lots of phone calls I finally found a dealer who had lot of the coins I needed at the right price. As with chips I paid alomost as much for shipping as I did for the 200 coins I bought. Turns out that the machine had a payout bar disconnected and after reconnecting it the machine works great.