Red-painted quarters used as informal accounting tools

Red-painted quarters, sometimes referred to as ‘house coins’ or ‘shills’, were historically used as a simple in-house accounting system for owners of coin-operated machines.

These coins were used by bar or restaurant operators to ‘prime’ jukeboxes with music to encourage customer use without losing actual profit. Because the red paint signaled the coin was not part of the daily earnings, the jukebox owner would know not to collect it as profit. Similarly, red-painted coins were used to address arcade machine malfunctions or to provide tenants with free laundry loads in laundromats, ensuring the coins were not counted among the standard revenue.