Arcade Crystal Coffee Mills - Part 1

The Arcade Crystal Mills are some of the most popular among collectors and yet a source of much confusion. These happen to be one our favorite mills, so here we will try to give some facts about them.

There is a lot of confusing and outright mis-information regarding the Arcade crystal coffee mills (especially if you look on ebay). You often see marriages from different models of the Crystal mills put together and passed off as complete, when they are actually made up of different parts from different models. If you do not know what the original should be, it can be very confusing. Some sellers are very honest and tell you; others feign ignorance while they know all along what they are really doing; and others just don't know any better. Here we will try to present some facts if we can. This information comes from a lot of very knowledgeable people in the coffee grinder world, but we are always learning new things about Arcade. This page will be updated on an on-going basis.

The Arcade Mfg Co. made a number of the Crystal mills from the 1900s to the 1930s. For some reason, the Crystal No. 3 was the most popular and is seems to be the most desirable among collectors today. These are the most valuable, although the No. 4, which is the second most desirable, has been catching up to the No. 3 in the last few years in value. The No. 25 is the least expensive and most easily found. The No.1 & No. 2 are the most difficult to find. These last two don't seem to have a lot of fans, but I think that is mostly because people just don't know about them. (A few more of the No. 1's have been showing up lately.)

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The first Crystal mill was the No. 1 just after 1900. They were clearly marked "Crystal No. 1" on the metal plate of the grinder. The most distinctive feature of the the No. 1 mill is that it has two little washers under the bottom plate that held the receiving jar with a top rim. Their receiving jars fell off easily, and it was difficult finding replacements because of the needed top rim.
As for the bean hopper on the No. 1, it is a plain jar, lipped around the neck with a rubber gasket. It has no wording or markings, nor does does it have any threads. As far as we know, the lids on the No. 1's were also plain (not embossed with the Arcade logo).
The neck on the body of the mill is embossed ARCADE.

Here a few pictures and close-ups of the Crystal No. 1 mill.

The original catch cups for the No. 1 are still a mystery. Attempts to find out what it was have been quite elusive. No one seems to know for sure if Arcade made a specific catch cup for this model or if any common jar was used. The problem is that the cup had to have a lip or ridge around the top to fit in between the two rubber washers. We believe that Arcade surely made a catch cup for it, but it was not marked in any way, hence no one can say for sure what it was.

The No. 1 mills were made from 1905-1913.

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The Crystal No. 2 mill has been a mystery that is becoming better understood. We originally thought the No. 2 mills were marked as such, but we were wrong. Apparently, there were two styles of the Crystal No. 2 mill, an early style and a later style for the same model number. This adds greatly to the confusion about these mills.

Some experts believe the Crystal No. 2 mills were still marked "Crystal No. 1" on the metal plate. It is the same as the No. 1 except they changed the design of the bottom cup holder. There are still remnants of the rubber grommets that held the catch cup on the No. 1s (it looks like they just cut off the grommets and left the little knobs sticking up on each side so they didn't have to re-mold the metal plate), but they added the bottom cup holder. The No. 2 was a big improvement because ordinary jelly jars could be used for replacement receiver cups, and the spring-tension holder secured the jars better for less breakage.

Some now unofficially call this the "1 1/2" mill to distinguish it from the later style of the No. 2 below. Again, it is basically the same as the original No. 1 except they added a catch cup holder.

The original hopper on these early No. 2 mills were plain jars with a lipped neck and no threads (just like the No. 1's), but also had a sticker on them. (This also adds to the confusion: having a metal body that says No. 1 with a top jar saying No. 2.) Very few of these have survived with the original decal; it adds a lot of value to the mill. Here we show an authentic No. 2 hopper with the original sticker, rubber gasket and lid.

 The stock finish for No. 2s were black, but for an extra charge, you could get them in blue enamel, oxidized copper or nickel plate finish.

In the later style of the No. 2, Arcade redesigned the whole mill. One would think this would have prompted an entirely new model number, but it didn't. From our knowledge, this later style first appeared in one of Arcade's trade catalogs around 1916.

These later No. 2s were what we had first thought were an early version of the No. 3s, but we were again wrong. It is in these later No. 2s that Arcade introduced the style on which they based their No. 3, which became their most popular model.

In this design, Arcade changed the hopper and the grinding mechanism entirely. They introduced the famous cursive label so popularized by the model No. 3, but in the No. 2s it is without the model number and they were still not threaded.

Here are a couple pictures of these later hoppers.

 The metal body of the No. 2 closely resembles the No. 3 with a few distinct differences if you know what to look for. It was with these mills that they changed the flourishes and introduced the easily recognized fleur-de-lis pattern on the metal body.

Here are the two major differences:
1) The later No. 2 has a narrower, flared leg with just one screw hole whereas the No. 3 has two.
2) The handle on the No. 2 is embossed with a decorative design whereas it is smooth on the No. 3.

Here is a picture of the body of a Crystal No. 2 and No. 3 mill side by side.
You can see the difference in the legs; this is the easiest tell-tale sign between the two.

Below are a couple pictures of a beautiful No. 2 mill from Robert Palmer's personal collection.
(Robert is the current treasurer of ACME.)

The above close-up shows the third major difference between the No. 2 and No. 3. If you notice the arrow pointing to the center part of the mill that is flattened out as it meets the handle, this area is embossed with decorations. With the No. 3 mills, this is smooth. This picture also highlights the embossed/decorative handle of the No. 2 mill, which is again smooth on the No. 3.

 The original catch cup for the Arcade No. 2 is known as Arcade's "generic" glass cup that was used for a number of their early mills. This catch cup was used for their Golden Rule mill, Bell mill, Monarch mill, Crystal No. 2 and Crystal No. 25 mills.

 These cups are clearly marked "ARCADE MFG CO FREEPORT ILL"

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The next Crystal mill Arcade made was the Crystal No. 25. This one has Arcade stamped on the metal lid of the glass bean hopper, and the bean jar is clearly marked "Arcade 25" in capital, block-type letters. These mills are fairly plain but can be found very easily and are the least expensive of all the Crystal mills.

The metal body of the No. 25 is plain or smooth but it is marked "ARCADE" on the neck of the metal body without any model number. As with the No. 1 and 2, the hopper for the No. 25 is lipped with a rubber gasket, not threaded.

We have know idea why they named it the 25.
Perhaps they first thought of it as 2.5 ???  (Some of the Crystal No. 4 mills are marked "40")

This picture shows the original box the No. 25s were shipped in.

As you can see, this original catch cup for the No. 25 is the "generic" Arcade glass cup mentioned above.

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In his book, Mike White tells us that after the Crystal 25, there was actually another Crystal mill made but was unmarked and no one seems to know much about it. The top jar was plain and the metal body had no wording (not even arcade) on it.

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After the No. 25s, Arcade made their most popular mills, the No. 3 & 4.
The entire next page is dedicated to these two mills.

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After the No. 4, Arcade also went on to produce an art deco style Crystal grinder, the No. 9010, in the late 1920s. This was the last of the mills in the Crystal series.  Again, we have no idea as to their numbering system.

There were not many of these mills produced (in comparison to their most popular, No. 3, mill) and they are just starting to really catch on with collectors. The cool art deco style was perfect for the 1920s.

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Arcade also made other crystal mills for other companies who then put their own names on them. It can become quite confusing when trying to track down information regarding a very specific design.

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