so I bought a pinball machine: May 2024

Friday, May 24, 2024

J. A. Jost, Jost & Cie: gamemaker extraordinaire

I have found the Jean Anatole Jost (1860-1926) catalogues very useful for my pinball ancestry research. According to Association Wellouëj (archive), Jost filed a patent for "le grimpeur au Mât de Cocagne" back in 1886. The current archives for patents don't seem to go back that far, but hopefully they will eventually get digitized.

In this post we are covering this across a few sections:

Catalogues
Factory Negatives
Games that Jost created
Games that Jost improved upon
Game Photographs
Patents

Catalogues

I have uploaded a number of Jost catalogues to the Internet Archive. Thank you to Patrick Carrière at Billards Anciens and James Masters at Masters Of Games for assistance.

J.A. Jost Catalogue 1890 - Manufacture De Jeux De Précision - Ancienne Maison Chevallier [PDF download]

This next catalogue is INCOMPLETE. I believe it is from ~1922, as I think the "Catalogue No." generally aligns with the year of 1900.

Jeu De Precision - Jost & Cie Catalogue No 22 [INCOMPLETE] [PDF download]

I am assuming that catalogue No. 26 is from around 1926.

Jeu De Precision - Jost & Cie Catalogue No 26 [PDF download]

This next catalogue does not even mention Jost at all, but contains materials from their earlier catalogues. On the back page you can see the imprint "1073 - 25.9.28". My assumption is that second number is the catalogue date, September 25th, 1928.

Règle Du Jeu Avec Notice sur Les Jeux D'aujourd'hui [PDF Download]

This next one is very similar to the one above, and appears to have been pasted inside the box of a roulette game. It contains the roulette instructions, followed by a short catalogue. It features J.A.J and J.A.L on the cover.

J.A.J. & J.A.L. - Les Jeux D'Aujourd'hui Règle Du Jeu [PDF download]

The following are images of covers of other catalogues. If you have these or any other Jost material, please send me an email. thetastates@gmail.com

1892 catalogue

The 1902 catalogue cover says "Catalogue No 2", which leads me to believe that there is a strong correlation between the catalogue numbers and the year in the 1900s.

1902 catalogue

One exception to that rule is the "Catalogue special" which seems to be a bonus supplement, perhaps published halfway between annual catalogues? That is a guess. This one still says " No. 2" but also 1903.

1902 catalogue

Factory Negatives

The following are silvered negative photographs from the Jost factory, as listed on proantic (archive). I'm posting the inverted versions.

Sega in the 1960s

This is a post to summarize all of my findings about Sega in the 1960s.

There are four sections:

Sega's corporate history in the 1960s
Sega games from the 1960s and their lineages
Investigating the Sega 1966 Price List
Additional clipped articles about Sega and related topics that were not included in the game articles

1) Sega's corporate history in the 1960s

On my eremeka site, the research notes have been updated with a condensed version of Sega's corporate structure in the 1960s:

セガ (Sega), or specifically Sega Enterprises, came into being in 1965 when they acquired Rosen Enterprises.

The early history of Service Games is quite complex, please see They Create Worlds by Alexander Smith. (archive)
1960-05-31: One subsidiary, Service Games Japan, was replaced with two companies in Japan:

日本娯楽物産 (Nippon Goraku Bussan): maintained the Service Games distribution and operating business in Japan, also did business as Utamatic Inc.
日本機械製造 (Nippon Kikai Seizo) continued the Service Games manufacturing operation, sometimes did business as "Sega Inc", and used the brand "SEGA", a contraction of Service Games.

1964-06: 日本娯楽物産 (Nippon Goraku Bussan) absorbs 日本機械製造 (Nippon Kikai Seizo)
1965-07-01: 日本娯楽物産 (Nippon Goraku Bussan) acquires Rosen Enterprises and renames to セガ・エンタープライゼス (Sega Enterprises)

2) Sega games from the 1960s and their lineages

I have written about many of Sega's famous games from the 1960s, and traced their design lineages.

Here is the full list of the Sega games I have documented.

Huge info dump beneath the cut as we get in to the 2 large sections....

exploring the arcade in this 1961 gun corner photograph

This is a poor scan of a photo printed in Cash Box in 1961. If you have access to a copy of this issue, please send me a high resolution scan.

As it currently stands, I can only make out 3 of the games, but I feel I could possibly identify 2 more if I had a better scan. Even better yet, I'd love to find an original copy of this photograph.