In message , at 11:54:54 on Mon, 9 Apr
2012, Roland Perry remarked:
I seem to recall that when the Victoria line was opened in 1969 some
form of the "new" gates were used at the Clapham transport museum to gain
entrance. However I am not sure that these were the full monty - possibly a
simplified mock up.

Somewhere I think I've got one of the tickets they used to sell. And
you are right about the mechanism - in practice all it would need to do
is accept a correctly-sized bit of card.

Either there, or maybe in Covent Garden later, they had a cutaway model
of one of the Victoria Line ticket readers, showing how it flipped the
ticket internally so it could be read properly, whichever orientation
it was presented by the passenger.

I was conflating a few things there, and now I've found the tickets.

Classic cardboard ones for the Clapham museum (not sure why the
different colours, and what does "Clapham Cl" stand for?)

And a special exhibition at the Science Museum, where you were given an
"Underground Ticket of the Future" (with magnetic stripe covering the
whole of the rear side) which you could put through the mock-up gates I
mentioned above.

http://yfrog.com/hws5gfj
--
Roland Perry