Old Familiar Memories - Photo 149

Self Photo Booth

Selling on every continent with booths available in any color, the Mutoscope Photomatic eventually became the Deluxe Photomat with 4 images on strips in the form popularized today. But when Rabkin died suddenly after WWII, his son took over and the company went bankrupt. In the 1950s the self-proclaimed Arcade King Rick Munves bought the business and created a 28-page catalogue of photobooths and other arcade games. Tenth Avenue from 41st to 43rd Street "was the coin-op world at that time," a New York Times article recently recalled. "Every coin-op vending machine that was sold in the tri-state area went through the distributors there." But we who grew up in the 60s and 70s never used these machines because they were outdone by Auto-Photo who had better distribution and sadly sent most of the early Photomaton to the junk heap.