A touch of the macabre

 

In my childhood, these machines could be found at Barry Island amusement arcade. I doubt they would be considered remotely acceptable nowadays.

You put your money in to be treated to an execution, though Madame Guillotine was a poor return. The other two had very clever automated puppet reproductions of the procedures. Finding these at Wookey Hole as part of a collection of vintage amusement machines, I decided to try and find out when they might have been made. 1920s apparently, though on my first search AI insisted on telling me that these types of machine never existed. They were a myth. In my childhood I thought nothing of them, but I really did find the American one (yes, of course I put some money in) particularly macabre.