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

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"

The Meyercord Co advertisement in 1932-02 Automatic Age

ENHANCE!
Marbelous revealed

arcade photographs from the collection of James R. Smith

James. R. Smith is a historian who has published 4 books about San Francisco, including 2 about Playland At The Beach.

I have ordered both of his Playland books, and the pair is currently available for $35 on his web site.

I approached James about photographs from his collection which depict Skeeball and Fascination parlors at Playland circa the 1920s and 1930s, and he agreed to let me share the original scans of his photographs with the world.  I use his photos in the "Beyond Japanese Rolling Ball" section of my Tamakorogashi post.

These are incredibly valuable photos for arcade research and I want to thank James again for what he is doing.  All of the photos are available in their full resolution through a downloadable ZIP file.  Below are the photos, just resized.  (The originals are 5-17 MB each)

To help add one extra layer of barrier for the bots that scrape photos (an inevitability that will never deter me from sharing whatever I can when I can,) the password on the ZIP file is 'jamesrsmith'.

Download the photos archive (password: jamesrsmith)  (If your browser doesn't like HTTP links, try copying the ZIP file's url and pasting it into a new window)

You can find James over on his website, HistorySmith.  He also has two other books, The California Snatch Racket, and San Francisco's Lost Landmarks.

HistorySmith: Tales of California and San Francisco by James R. Smith

On with the pictures!  We have shooting gallery ranges, Spill The Milk, Skee Ball, Whirl O Ball, Fascination, Keeno, The Cony Race, and my favourite: The Monkey Pinball Race.  Most of these photos seem to be from the 1930s.  Some might be earlier, but hard to verify.  If you spot any tell-tale clues that help discern dates in any of the photos, please comment below.

"The Arcades proved to be the big money makers at the Chutes and later at Playland. A patron standing in line to pay a dime for a ride might pay fifty cents an hour if they were serious riders.  A person standing at an arcade could pay that dime every few minutes, placing up to a buck or more an hour on the mark with multiple people playing concurrently. It was all done in fun but it was serious business as well." - James R. Smith

 

Whitney's Shooting Gallery - The skunk and Bob Cat above were taxidermy specimens
I am told this gallery is made by W.F. Mangels

The Whitney Brothers took over Chutes At The Beach circa 1929, so all the Whitney signage points to 1929 or later.  The Whitney Bros. renamed it Playland, and it was called Playland At The Beach.

dapper

Skee-Ball Scoring tables and Prizes
I love being able to read the wall signs and examine the redemption prizes

Bunco Games To Beware Of

In 1923 writer W.B. Gibson (Walter Gibson!  Author of The Shadow!) began a column called BUNCO GAMES TO BEWARE OF.  He tapped his own carnival experience to explain the 'gamester' ruses that allows for carnival / fair arcade games to be especially profitable.

These were syndicated in newspapers around the USA through 1923-1925.  I have 48 of these articles collected here.  (Some of the later prints of them include their "number" in the series, but only 3 have ever had an order number indicated.)

At the bottom of this post I will include more articles on Walter Gibson and include 2 more introductory advertisements for the series.

I found this series while researching tamakorogashi, and a shady American carnival variant (that was based on Japanese Rolling Ball's success) is listed below as "Japanese Roll-Down".

Most of these games survived many decades, if not a whole century.  Lots of them are purely mechanical gimmicks but some even highlight the new-fangled ELECTRICITY gimmicks, the start of the electro-mechanical arcade era.

The Wheel Of Chance

The following 49 games are included here.  Open any image in a new window to assist in reading.

Airplane Race

Aunt Sarah's Clothes Line

Automatic Bowling Alley

Ball and Cone

Balloon Game

Baseball Rack

Beehive

Big Tom

Candy Wheel

Carnival Clock

Carnival Roulette

Cats On The Rack

Cigaret Shooting Gallery

Coin and the Tenpin

Country Store Wheel

Devil's Bowling Alley

Drop Case

English Pool*

Fish Pond

Flashing Flag

Gravitation Ball Game

Hand Striker

High Striker

Hoop Tossing

Hurdle Ladder

Japanese Roll-Down

Knife Rack

Marble Rolldown

Monkey Slats

Percentage Spindle

Picking Out The Colors

Pop 'Em In

Race Course

Red White & Blue

Roll-A-Race

Rolling Log Faro

Roly-Poly

Shell Game

Shooting Gallery

Silver Arrow

Spotting The Spot

String Game

Swinging Ball

Three Card Monte

Three Pin Game

Throwing Darts

Watch La

Wheel of Chance

Whirling Spindle

*As far as I know, there is only one article missing, on English Pool.  In it's wake, I have included another article by Gibson that describes English Pool.