so I bought a pinball machine: Hot-Shot, Discotelle, Marbelous: obscure 1930s games

Friday, October 25, 2024

Hot-Shot, Discotelle, Marbelous: obscure 1930s games

Of all the companies listed in IPDB about half of them are from the 1930s. (credit to Michael Minchew for pointing that out.) This was a time of rapid innovation that saw an incredible number of companies threw their hat into the ring. Many companies would release a game or two, maybe just a prototype, and then fold.

The rules, tropes, and expectations of pinball were all very new and the result was a period of wild creativity with relatively few success stories, at least compared to the volume of different machines built. Many of the machines from this time, especially the very quirky ones, probably only have less than 10 copies remaining. Lots of these probably only have a single copy remaining. But that's not altogether surprising when you consider the business zeitgeist of the thirties coinop world.

Here are three games that I noticed recently.

1932 Hot-Shot by The Ball Games inc, Chicago

I begged Rob Berk to bring this game to pinball expo. I had caught a glimpse of this game during a YouTube video that toured his facility showed off some of the back storage area.

The only reference to hotshot that I've seen is in this 1932 issue of automatic age where the game and associated company were listed for an exhibition.

Automatic Age 1932-03

The game has a nearly flat play field almost like a billiards table except hardwood like a pin table. It has a slight tilt so balls will fall into the slots at the front if they do not enter a hole.

A large plane of glass would cover it though the machine in the picture does not have the glass on. It has a nickel slide at the front, which should move the baffle board and release the falling balls into a trough at the left side of the machine. A player would then manually pick up the balls and place them into one of two cannons at the front. Each of the cannons has a spring lever at the back allowing the player to fire the balls into the playfield where they hopefully come to rest in high scoring pockets.

ball tray

I really hope this gets fixed up one day because it looks like a very fun concept.

bottom scoring pockets

Rules for playing

This game is certainly precedented. Here's another random cannon-plunge-style game from the same year:

Q-Ball by Dixie Music Co
Automatic Age 1932-02

1933 Discotelle by Lebren Manufacturing, Coventry

This game came up for auction this year and I was very intrigued, though not intrigued more than, say, $200. It's a carnival-style game (i.e. no coin slot, the operator must reset it) where you plunge glass discs on the playfield to try and cover the fruit icons.

Automatic Age 1933-08

I wrote to the auction house and they took a photo of the discs included, but we concluded that these were probably not the original glass discs since they were smaller than the circles.

1932 Marbelous by The Superior Confection Co, Columbus

This game recently came up for auction (archive). The name was a mystery to the pre-war community, but I found the game in advertisement for "decalomania transfers"