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:
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.
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.
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
The following is a slim catalogue that popped up on Ebay. Given the phrasing, I assume this is a later catalogue, after Jost passed. I like the photographs from the shop. If you think there are clues to help date it, please let me know.
Factory Negatives
The following are silvered negative photographs from the Jost factory, as listed on proantic (archive). I'm posting the inverted versions.
Today I got home from an epic trip to the Whiterose Gameroom Show aka The York Show. It was an 8.5 hour drive and oh god that was numbing. At least the highway was well maintained and unremarkable for the vast majority of the drive. I had planned to do it over 2 days, but didn't want to spend the extra money on one more night at a motel. Though I did stop at a hotel on the way home as to maximize my time at the show.
I had arranged a fairly epic trade. I traded 3 prewar machines and a game stand from the 1930s for a toupie hollandaise table, estimated to be from the late 1800s. Click the toupie tag at the bottom if you want to see more examples, but quick answer is that it is a spinning top game where you fire off the spinning top and hope to knock down the skittles.
While setting the table up I was approached by the curator at the Roanoke Pinball Museum that was as infatuated with the table as I was. He wanted to know if it was for sale and I said no, I just traded for it. He made a very compelling case for the museum acquiring it. I believe something like this deserves to be widely seen and appreciated. This is a distant cousin of pinball, meeting at the lineage of "aristocratic table game". The original slanted pin-table bagatelles were similarly sized and gilded affairs, with few affording them outside the moneyed classes. He wanted to use this as the beginning of the museum's historical timeline, and it is perfect for that. As far as we know, toupie tables like this came well before pin bagatelles, with spinning top games themselves being ancient. Aristocratic Table Games are exactly where I begin my own lineage of pinball ancestry. The museum would expose thousands of visitors a year to the concept of pinball ancestry, to thinking beyond flippers, beyond Whiffle.
I told him that I would trade it for a working World's Fair Jig-Saw by Rock-ola, but he didn't have one. But this was the opening and he offered to buy it right away, and that was the tipping point where I realized it be so much better for it to go to the museum. I have a galley arcade and would have had to have it standing upright behind my Skill Roll. It deserved a better fate.
This beautiful table will be set up at the Roanoke Pinball Museum, and I get to be a small part of that story. It is a similar feeling as when I help friends find machines they wanted, and to get to be part of that story too.
There were many wonderful games that the show that I was thrilled to play. A wonderful variety: prewars, bingos, a large woodrail lineup, 60s+70s EMs, 80s, 90s, a few aughts, and then plenty of modern era.
Of the new machines, there were 2 major highlights for me: The Godfather and Drained / P3. The build quality of these machines felt wonderful. They are in another league compared to Stern machines, but R.I.P. anyone wanting to move them up or down any stairs.
All of the shots on Godfather felt like an adventure. I love the feel of them. The theme integration was spot-on in my opinion, and really showcasing what a machine focused on adults can be. I love my Stern games, but after years of comic art themes the Godfather feels incredibly refreshing. Gameplay wise, it almost feels like a modern Twilight Zone.
The other highlight was getting to play a number of P3 games thank to Nick Baldridge. He was there with his beautiful P3 module Drained. The left machine in the photo includes the full art package with an incredible speaker plate art package.
The build quality is surreal on these, but what won me over was the idea that pinball could capture that smaller-scope fun again. Let me explain: Modern pinball machines start at $7500 USD for a Stern Pro and go up far higher, and players demand epic game depth for that kind of coin. But talk to the hordes of people who spent the weekend primarily playing games from the 50s to the 90s, and sometimes you just want pinball to be a 3-7 minute game, not potentially a 30+ minute epic quest. (Sure, balls times are quick on location on new machines, but if you have a modern machine at home you're going to learn the shots quite well)
With the cost of a new module at $3500, P3 lets you swap in entirely new games for less than the price of a poorly-playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 rows away. A game like Drained is tonnes of fun and harkens back to the ethos shared by the EM machines the playfield is inspired by. The only other modern game I can think of that channels that earlier-era pinball experience is Total Nuclear Annihilation. Perhaps Pulp Fiction (and would Bond 60th count?) also has that feel, but I haven't played it yet. If you appreciate the game play of TNA, definitely give Drained a try.
I still haven't played the big games for the platform: Weird Al, Heist, and Final Resistance, and even without considering them I still have to gush about the quality of the P3 platform. For someone like me with a galley arcade, I have to add P3 to my list of dream machines. (though I doubt I could get it down my stairs without breaking it down into smaller pieces)
Nick Baldridge next to Drained on a P3 with the art package installed. The right machine was running Drained: Bite-Sized, a boss-rush mini game that can be bought for the custom Drained module.
Of the other new games out, most were no-shows. No Pulp Fiction, Scooby Doo, Galactic Tank Force, etc. I did get to try Venom for the first time and I definitely like the Premium over the Pro. The shots on the Pro just don't feel as enticing. Overall I was underwhelmed, even on the Premium, but probably because I suck at fan layouts. (I loathe playing No Fear in a tournament)
Venom Premium by Stern
Some other game highlights:
1947 Singapore by United Not only was this game flipperless (though some copies that exist were retrofitted, since this game was released shortly after Humpty Dumpty) this game also has no plunger. The player must roll the balls up the glass where the fall into the playfield at the top.
rule card
this game would normally have an upper plane of glass preventing a player from dropping the balls in directly at the top, greatly increasing the difficulty.
the wonderfully unique ball lifter & ejector
Years before he designed games for the P3 platform, Baldridge created the Multi-Bingo (right) and Multi-Races (left). These remarkable machines let you play all of the bingo and one-ball horserace games with the original gameplay hardware, with the backglass and logic done by computer. I spent a lot of times around these two games, helping people learn about these gambling machines from the 40s and 50s+.
There were a number of EM bingo machines there, with 1961 Bikini by Bally being my favourite. This is packed with all of the Magic Screen goodness of similar games around 1960+, but also has the "OK" game option which earns credits for the Futurity Game. It's not quite so straightforward, but here's how that goes: if you qualify "OK", to the left of the Magic Screen letters, you can shift the screen to the right 2 positions, revealing an orange section. 2 balls in that solid orange section (5 number options) let's you win Futurity Game credits. The number of credits you win is shown on the top left section, and aligns with the green scoring odds advancement at the bottom. When you get the 2 in the orange and press R, that number of Futurity Game credits is added to the Futurity Game counter on the right. you can "spend" these credits by pressing the orange button on the lockdown bar. This starts a game where you get generous odds and options, guaranteed. The more Futurity Game points you have, the more lucrative the features and odds you're guaranteed. It is a very cool feature.
there were actually 2 Soccer Kings (by Zaccaria) side by side, part of a small Zaccaria lineup
I love Sinbad, and kind of wish I hadn't sold it (but also wish I had more space). This modified version with LCD screen and movie footage had me smiling ear to ear. Loved it.
1951 Globe-Trotter by Gottlieb my favourite woodrail of the show, and perhaps one of my favourite woodrails. If this was for sale at the show I'd have had a hard time resisting. Like Volley, the 4 rollovers at the top each light a bumper. The game also has kickers beneath the flippers, meaning you have to be patient and wait for the ball to bump back up into play. The center hole at the bottom also kicks the balls up to the bumpers.
It is hard to definitively understand the world of billiard variants. The game(s) travelled the world many times over, some names were only used in certain regions, some regional-sounding names were given with little-to-no connection to those territories, and many times historical sources would naively swap names around.
This is another work-in-progress post where I'm going to try and collect some details, but I propose a singular takeaway: LET'S STOP CALLING THINGS "BAGATELLE". Please? Bagatelle is a toy home pinball game, it's a musical number, it's a literal TRIFLE synonym, it's a billiard board, it's an antique pin board, it's enough things. Let's be more specific.
Quick summary of the styles I'm interested in:
9-hole bagatelle / English Bagatelle: long and thin tables where you shoot from one end to pocket balls in the 9 shallow holes on the playfield. These tables come up for sale somewhat regularly in the UK, and the folding versions come up occasionally in USA. You don't often see it referenced as "9-hole bagatelle" but I am calling it that because it's explicitly descriptive. My entry on 9-hole English bagatelle
Pin Bagatelle / French bagatelle / Parisian bagatelle / Russian Bagatelle / cockamaroo: a slanted table where balls are shot up a channel and then fall down through pins/pegs. Full-sized tables of this type seem to be very rare / obscure, with smaller toy-sized versions being rather common. Features like shooting method, playfield gimmicks, and score holes vary, and I use "pin bagatelle" as an overarching category covering these variants. My entry on pin bagatelle / French bagatelle
Klondike Pool / Tivoli Table / American Bagatelle / Manhattan: very similar to other pin bagatelles, except it employs a holes and a trough system to delivery the balls to the front. Pretty obscure, but at least some copies are known to exist. Late 19th century, and primarily American. My entry on pin bagatelles includes a section on Klondike Pool
Japanese Rolling Ball / Tamakorogashi (玉ころがし) / Billard Japonais / Japanese Billiards: a long table like 9-hole bagatelle, but with holes arranged in rows and given a larger range of point values. Typically the end of the table is rounded, but sometimes it is rectangular. No cue is used, balls are rolled by hand. Many home-made ones exist due to their ease of construction, especially in parts of Europe where it still has popularity as a fair game. My entry on Japanese Rolling Ball
Pigeon Hole / Trou Madam / Parepa: has holes to shoot through at one end. Many 9-hole tables also had an add-on to make it a pigeon-hole table. Dedicated tables of this type are very rare / obscure, especially the angled Parepa tables. Pigeon-hole is more often played on English Bagatelle tables by inserting a wooden bridge. The dedicated Pigeon Hole tables have a trough under the playfield that returns the balls to the front of the table, same as bar billiards.
Most billiard tables can be converted to a table like this by adding a wooden arch made to fit across the narrow cross-section of the playfield. The game Trou Madam, dating to the 16th century, can have arches like this, and games like Mississippi are played in this manner.
Carombolette: a variant of pigeon-hole that adds a pin-bagatelle feature on the other side of the gates. These are very rare / obscure. The stopper pictured below would allow the table to be played purely as a pigeon hole table. My entry on carombolette
Bar billiards / Jenny Lind / Russian Billiards: Balls are shot from the front and into holes which channel the balls back to the front of the table. Played with "skittles" (wooden pieces) on the playfield to avoid. Common, still made and played today. My entry on bar billiards some videos on bar billiards
Jenny Lind Table - holes in the table direct balls to trough at the front 1872 J. M. Brunswick catalog
Some other table games:
Toupie Hollandaise: no strong connection to billiards or bagatelle, but I'm including because people often lump these in with antique bagatelles. It has skittles on a flat playfield, to be knocked over by a spinning top. Also exists as a children's versions. My entry on Toupie Hollandaise
Bowling Naco: balls are rolled down and their angle modified by changing the shooter's angle. Exists as a large parlor game, very popular in children's toys, and also exists as coin-op games. Including here because it was made into a coin-op game in the 1930s around the time when pin bagatelle went coin-op too.
Back in my original bagatelle posts I had this one table at the bottom I didn't understand, with cast characters standing over gates, and no visible plunger, and no real obvious shooting area.
Turns out this is called Toupie Hollandaise, aka a spinning top game from France. It apparently has origins from the 17th century with Toptafel tables being make in Holland, Belgium, and Germany, but the larger sized tables were mostly 19th-20th century. It's thematic connection to bagatelle being that it was an aristocratic game played on a custom table surface. No cues, no balls, this game used spinning tops to try and knock down tiny pegs / skittles. It is often mislabeled as "bagatelle" in many of the auctions they've appeared in.
Some tables had bells hanging between gates, which I believe gave points in addition to toppling the skittles. These balls would be thematically similar to the bells in carombolette tables, and pin bagatelles.
There is hearsay that the tables would be made with bells underneath them to discourage movement, like a proto-tilt, but it is thought that these would be later add-ons. I have never seen a table that has a bell. We received a comment (check the bottom of this post) on this topic, and wish to reflect that information here.
I've found lots of discussion of these tables, but very few primary sources. They are still popular carpentry projects, and yes after 400 years they basically evolved in to Beyblades.
