My love of Pinball Machines

When I would go skating, the best part was playing all of the pinball machines. I’ve always favored them over the video games at arcades because they were machines instead of a screens. Some took some skill and bumping the machine a little but not too much to tilt. I remember Baseball pinball machines, the Elton John model, KISS model, The Who Pinball Wizard model, and many bicentennial models. Below is a quick history of these works of art. 

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The start of pinball machines started in the 19th century with a  “Bagatelle-Table”,  a sort of hybrid between a “pin table” and pool table. Players tried to hit balls with cue sticks and get them into pockets or slots surrounded by nails and pins. Another step towards the modern pinball form occurred sometime at the end of 19th century when inventor Montague Redgrave patented a device called a “ball shooter”, which was based on the recently invented steel spring.

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The first coin-operated “pinball machine” was invented in 1931 by Automatic Industries and was called the “Whiffle Board”. But the gaming industry really began in the mid-1930s with the production of a game called “Ballyhoo”. It was invented by one Raymond Maloney, who later started the Bally Manufacturing Company of Chicago, IL.

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Pinball machines really grew in popularity after World War II. The ten-year period of 1948-58 is referred to by some as the “Golden Age” of pinball, due to the invention of flippers in 1947 by the D. Gottlieb Co. in a game called “Humpty Dumpty”, and was one of the main reasons for the renewed interest in pinball machines at the time. Humpty Dumpty was the very first pinball machine with flippers!

In 1966, the first digital scoring pinball machine, “Rally Girl” was released Rally. In 1975, the first solid-state electronic pinball machine, the “Spirit of 76”, was released by Micro. In 1998, the first pinball machine with a video screen was released by Williams in their new “Pinball 2000” series machines. Versions of pinball are now being sold that are completely software-based.

I still like the software-free machines…some were like works of art.

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I didn’t know they had a Beatle pinball machine.

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I have to close this out… with what else?

 

 

 

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

36 thoughts on “My love of Pinball Machines”

    1. Oh that would be an awesome thing to visit. I think Las Vegas has a pinball machine museum as well….if I went in…I would want to play!

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  4. Great stuff Max, takes me back to my arcade days! We had two pinball machines (can’t recall which ones they were) in the lounge side of the bar I worked at, we would often play on our ‘breaks’ in the off hours when the place was empty. Come to think of it, during the opening hours drinking when we weren’t working!

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    1. Thanks Randy! Now THAT is a great job! Yea I’ve played them all of my life. My stepdad owned a store in the late seventies and I helped run it. He had a gambling pinball machine…the ones where it had holes. If this works…it looks like this:

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      2. He was on the sly about it because it was illegal…but we are talking 5-20 bucks if someone won…and yes…I did win a few times!

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  6. Ever since Max was a young boy….he’s played the silver ball… I remember a few years back they got in town the Iron Maiden pinball machine. My brother , my nephew along with myself must have blown through $50 easy haha

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  7. Cool! wherever those old ones photographed are looks like a spot that would be fun to visit – I love that old Sprite metal sign on the wall too. I was never really ‘into’ them in as much as I didn’t go specifically to arcades to play them, but if I was somewhere where there was a machine and I had a few minutes, I enjoyed playing- much more so than video arcade games. When I was a kid I had some sort of little table-top version, which I remember my mom called a ‘bagatelle’, which I see is a name you mentioned

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    1. Yes those were really cool to have. A few years after my parents divorced…my dad got me a stand up pinball machine…not professional but a good solid machine…I played that for years. I forgot what happened to it.
      To me…many are works of art. If you like those signs…I’ll send you some pictures of some I have…I have a Sprite, 7up, Ski, and Coke clock…and I have some signs.

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  10. Growing up every burger bar had one to for you to play while they were making your Double Whopper Cheese/cholesterol burger. Good way to while away five minutes and fritter away twenty cents.

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  14. I do recall there were pinball machines in Germany while growing up there. But I guess they weren’t as popular as in the U.S. Unlike listening to “Pinball Wizard,” which I easily must have done ten of times, I could probably count with one hand the number of times I played a pinball machine. 🙂

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    1. I would love a KISS pinball machine…but yea. I thought about getting a pinball machine in bad shape and fixing it up…but it’s way too complicated for a novice like me.

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  16. I grew up loving pinball. In my home town of Bayonne, NJ, there was a candy store on every corner and the machines rotated around the city so you got to play dufferent games all the time. When I got to college, I used to say that I majored in pinball since I spend most of my time playing in the student lounge and winning games caused me to miss a class or two. My fave machines were the ones made by Gottlieb. They were simple in design and you could easily figuure how what you needed to do to win games. In my late 40s, I bought a Gottlieb “Quick Draw” machine that we put in our game room. I couldn’t believe that I was actually palyng pinball in my pajamas. We finally got rid of it and sold it since it was in need of repairs and I thought I get another one instead which I have yet to do. The best place in the world to me to play was always the Asbury Park boardwalk where they now have a museum where you can play the vintage machines by the hour – it’s heaven on earth!

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    1. My step father ran a store and in the late 70s I would play the pinball machines in the back.
      I can see why you would rather just get another…they are expensive to work on. It’s cool though that you had one in your game room.

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