PopKulture's photos with the keyword: pinball

I wanted to take her home with me - can you blame me?? She wasn't all that prohibitively priced - somewhere around $500. The major drawback is she takes up space... valuable space. And to tell you the truth, she's not all that fun to play. No, instead, I would just gaze at her, transfixed on her grace and curvitude. She, by the way, sits atop a 1947 Bally Nudgy pinball machine, and for now I'm content to admire her from afar and no doubt ponder what could have been.

Manufactured in 1955, Williams Smoke Signal is a gleaming example of what is today termed a "woodrail" by pinball collectors because of the oak trim that framed the playfield and backbox. As the familiar mechanical scoring reels had not yet been invented, all the scoring was still tallied and displayed by lights on the backglass. The balance of the backglass allows for a wonderfully optimistic take on the great westward, pioneering movement. Surely the Sooners never looked as good as the backlit belle shown here!

Playfield detail of a futuristic space siren from a 1963 Bally Star Jet.

Playfield detail from a 1955 Williams Smoke Signal pinball.

Vintage arcade flyer for Skill Derby by the Stoner Corporation of Aurora, Illinois, and distributed by the W. B. Novelty Co. of St. Louis, Missouri. Horse-racing themes were a staple of arcade games in the 1930's.

Vintage pinball flyer for Streamline by Bally Manufacturing Co. Streamlined and sleek indeed, from the playfield styling as well as the advertising - just what you'd expect in a game from 1934.

Vintage pinball flyer for Ace by Bally Manufacturing Co., 1935. One-ball payout machines were a prolific variation on pinball through the early years. This led to huge sales, but even bigger problems down the road with critics that decried similar machines as degenerate and viceful.

Vintage pinball flyer for Gateway by Exhibit Manufacturing Co. 1930's. Like other early pinball manufacturers, Exhibit experimented with interchangeable playfields for operators to update the look and play of games on their routes without having to buy entirely new machines.

Vintage pinball flyer for Zoom by Stoner Mfg., 1935. By the mid-1930's, a handful of pinball bagatelle tables were sporting small headers at the top of the playfield that would soon evolve into the more familiar backboxes ubiquitous on pinballs from the 40's onward.

Vintage pinball flyer for Rapid Fire by Exhibit Manufacturing Co., 1930's. The earlier pinball machines of the 1930's evolved from parlor games and bagatelle tables and offered 5, 7, or even 10 balls for a penny. This first generation of pinball machines was for pure amusement only, but gambling quickly became the name of the game, and one-ball payout machines replaced their earlier counterparts by mid-decade.

Vintage pinball flyer for Bazaar by Exhibit Manufacturing Co., 1937. Note the emergence of what would soon become the familiar backbox of today.

Vintage advertising flyer for Ray's Track by Bally Manufacturing of Chicago, Illinois, then the pinball capital of the universe. By the mid to late 30's, every manufacturer was rushing to cash in on the frenzied popularity of Ed Pace's Paces Races, the prototypical horse-racing consule of the type shown above, and Bally's founder and namesake, Ray Maloney, proved no exception. By my reckoning, Baker and Evans came closest in duplicating Pace's success, but then World War II got in the way, and the postwar gambling vacuum was filled in part by pinball-styled bingo machines and in greater part by a certain desert city...

Vintage advertising brochure for Bally Manufacturing's 1936 Snappy. Machines such as this offered one shot per coin and were more for gambling than what we think of today as pinball machines. Both the flyer and the machine itself, I must admit, with its wonderful Art Deco adornments, do indeed look "snappy!"

Vintage advertising flyer for Bally's 1936 All-Stars pinball machine, though not in the common view of the word. Pinball prior to 1947 meant no flippers, believe it or not. You'd just launch the ball, skillfully as possible, and then nudge the machine short of "tilting" it. Many machines like the one pictured above were "one-shots," or one ball per coin, and featured pay-outs. It took pinball many years to break the gambling stigma of the 1930's, and until the advent of the flipper, it was a tougher case to argue.