Slots to Skee-ball, Elvis to fortune tellers, Dave's Casino in Swansea has it all
SWANSEA — The guided missile (actually a disposable aviation fuel tank) in the front yard is but a tease. Lump in the vintage gas pumps, vintage cars, amusement park ride pieces, mailboxes and more in the driveway and you're still looking at just the tip of the iceberg that is Dave's Casino.
Whoa, you say, a casino in Swansea? When did this happen? Some surprise recent addition to the Swansea Mall redevelopment, perhaps?
No, no, no. It's not an operating business casino. But make no mistake about it, much of Dave Babin's home collection of old-time, fun, colorful, and often coin-operated stuff is heavily Las Vegas themed. He loves Vegas for the casinos and museums. He makes it a practice to get out there once a year.
Where is Dave's Casino?
Dave's Casino is located on Milford Road, directly across the street from the Swansea Memorial Park tennis courts, between the two Joseph Case High School access roads. In addition to his garage, driveway and yard, it consists of his house up front and the real fun center, the two-story, 30-by-50 building in the back, a structure which originated in 1831 as the First Church of Christ and was later used for boat-building.
Babin, 70, bought the property in the early 1980s, after his passion for buying and restoring had started but before, due to lack of space, he had been able to shift his collecting into high gear.
“Now I've got room,” he said with a laugh. “Don't have any money, but I've got plenty of junk.”
The casino's “patrons” are his friends and, most importantly and most frequently, his four grandchildren, ages 9 to 17.
What types of antiques and memorabilia does Dave Babin collect?
A Durfee High graduate and a millwright — welder, carpenter, electrician — at Robbins Manufacturing Co. in Fall River, Babin said he can't even make a good guess of how many pieces are in his amazing collection. There are photos. Pinball machines. Gambling tables. A gambling teller window. An animatronic fortune teller booth. Jukeboxes. More. So much more. Look left or right, up or down, and your senses will be stimulated. There's a phone booth, with Superman inside. Elvis in a coffin. Skee ball. He owns a railroad crossing light. There's an impressive model train setup.
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Asked to briefly throw a descriptive blanket over his collection, Babin says, “Antique fun.”
He said he has a preference for items from 1950 and earlier.
Everything at Dave's Casino is neat and clean. Not that he often buys them that way. Babin is a wiz at restoration and repair. He fixes and paints his items, leaving them in museum display condition. He says that while he gets plenty of offers to buy his collection items, he doesn't often make a sale because it's not easy to part with an item he's worked so hard and so meticulously to restore.
His car collection includes a '66 Corvette, '68 Firebird, '65 Mustang, '57 Thunderbird and a '54 Pontiac truck. He's pretty handy at fixing and beautifying cars.
His Princess Doraldina fortune-teller booth, made in 1929, is a rare item. Babin said he was told there are only 16 still be around.
How this Swansea resident got his start in collecting antiques
Babin's been at this fun-antique collecting a long time. He shared its simple beginning.
“I went to Vegas, played the slot machines, and wanted one of my own,” he said recently from his slot-machine-fillled home office. “That was 40 years ago, or 50 years ago, I don't know.”
If one had to coronate one item category as king or queen at Dave's Casino, slot machines would wear that crown. He has about 100 of them. All look sweet. Some are fully functional, with coin dispensing for the pleasure of his grandchildren. Others no longer crank because the grease has dried.
Many of the slots are conventional. A few are not. In his office, in his home, are a Native American statue and a cowboy statue. Both statues are full size and both have a slot machine embedded in their chests.
Taking second place behind the slots would be Coca-Cola items. Can and bottle dispensing machines. Mirrors. A bench. Advertising materials. Posters. Signs.
Elvis-related items are not far behind Coke, everything from mannequins to posters.
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Where does it all come from?
Babin knows his way around eBay, around Facebook Marketplace. He belongs to a national antiques group and has traveled to Chicago for gatherings. There's still word of mouth. He's gone up and down the East Coast. The traveling has slowed, though. “Too old for that,” he said. “Sometimes I get junk for free; sometimes I pay, depending on condition. Most of the time, everything needs to be restored, repaired or refinished.”
And how much has he invested in purchase and repair/restoration?
“I have no idea,” he said. “It's been so much over time. I'd rather not know.”
Babin's girlfriend, Marcia, offered no complaints about living in a house that has sacrificed much of the first-floor space to Dave's collection. She knew what she was getting into.
“It's been interesting, I will say,” Marcia said. “As long as I get one or two rooms to myself, I'm a happy girl.”
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Dave's Casino in Swansea full of Coca-Cola, Elvis, Vegas memoraibilia
