'cause there's no repros I know of. I think the War Eagle is, too. A couple of hints, but nothing definative until you get at the insides and the casing with a ruler, comparing the casting with an original.

The varnish looks old on the base, and the two bolts on the base aren't usually seen, to my knowledge anyway, on the repros. Also, the paytable may be genuine as the cherries are faded. Even so, I suppose it could be a repro.

The dead giveaway is on the inside, when you look at the coin chute and the other stuff. The modern ones use crappy,thin metal (and sometimes even plastic for the chutes, whereas the genuine articles are sturdy. Also, the real castings are slightly larger than the modern repros. To make the modern castings, whoever did it made a mold from a genuine casting. However, because the the casting metal shrinks as it cools, the modern castings are slightly smaller than the originals, by a 1/16th of an inch or so. They are both pretty machines, but the Columbia is not as likely to work consistently, as its innards are largely made of zinc castings, and over the years cast zinc become brittle. Try finding replacement parts!

In its day, the Columbia was a really good machine. It was reliable, and you could easily change denominations just by changing the coin slot head. It also had the great benefit for the owner in that, because it used a rotary coin tray, not unlike the old Kodak slide projector carosels, it operated on the basis of last-in/first-out. So, if a guy was playing with slugs, and won a 5-coin jackpot, he'd get back the last 5 coins he'd played. If they were slugs he couldn't very well complain. Cool anti-theft device. Too bad about the zinc, but they didn't expect the machines to be around for 70 years and metallurgy wasn't as advanced back in the 30's as it is now.

On the left in the picture below is my 1933 Pace Bantam penny machine. The penny machine is completely original. On the right is my fully restored 1928 Pace Bamtam quarter machine. I love them. I've had the penny machine for about 6 years and played it thousands of times. It's never jammed a single time. I got the quarter machine last year and it works great, but needs a slight adjustment on the swinging chute that either puts the coin into the jackpot or into the bag (neither have a coin box - the Bantams use a canvas bag to help make them shorter). One of these days I'll get around to adjusting it.