Kovels Antiques: Fortune-telling machines popular in ’30s

Zoltar the Fortune Teller is the coin-operated machine in the movie “Big” that changed Tom Hanks’ character into a grown-up. The publicity from the movie created a market for the machine, and copies were made in the 1960s and ’70s. Coin-operated fortune-telling machines were popular at amusement parks and penny arcades in the 1930s and after.

By: By Terry Kovel, INFORUM