Pinball Feature Story

"One Thousand Pinballs"

Number I

Welcome to the "Pinball Feature Story". Here I will blab on about games or stories related to pinball in some way. I hope to make this a regular feature of my web site, but given my time constraints it will probably be irregular in nature. I, like most people with a website, would like to be able to publish a complete online "ezine" myself. But it's a lot of work. And as the web matures, crappy, bad-taste graphics (like I'm good at) won't cut it anymore, as the graphic artists take over. So I won't even attempt good taste graphics and you're stuck with the bad!

Incredible ad

The first feature is an ad taken from a Billboard magazine ad from November 17, 1934, shown above. Can you believe it? Every pinheads dream come true! Heck, I think even in 1934 this would have been a screaming bargain! What would 1000 three year old games cost you now - a million dollars? It shows you the probable fate of countless thousands of early bagatelle-style pin games - sold for $1 or wrecked at the dump.

Wouldn't it be something to excavate an old dump and find a mother lode of 1930's games buried beneath still-edible hot dogs, green garbage bags, etc.? OK, it would smell, but it would be awesome nonetheless. Look around - I bet there's still got to be some barns somewhere loaded with old bagatelles.

Last updated: May 6, 2005