Shorpy pics

Shorpy is a wonderful site if you like browsing wonderful old photos at good resolutions.  Here are some photos that tweakbod shared on the Gaming Alexandria server.

1899 Toledo, Ohio. Produce Exchange
Mutoscope!

1905 - Rockaway, New York, circa 1905. The Bowery looking east - 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co
shooting galleries on either side of the street 

1906 - Salem, Massachusetts, Town House Square at Washington and Essex Streets
penny scale 

1910 Utica, New York - United Commercial Travelers of America building
2nd floor shooting gallery

1913 Arcade building, Washington
for the "when did the contemporary game center meaning of arcade first emerge?" research

1922 Washington, D.C. Coin-operated radio in barbershop

1940-02 Truck driver in diner. Clinton, Indiana
1-ball horse race gambling pin

1941 Penny Arcade Kids - Rolling Green Park, located between Selinsgrove and Sunbury, PA

1943-03 Sam Bens and Noah Booher, drivers for Associated Transport Company, having dinner with a textile mill truck driver at a highway stop along U.S. Route 11 near Wytheville, Virginia
another 1-ball gambling machine

1944-06-07 Maser Music showroom, Mission and Washburn streets, San Francisco
Note the gambling pinball machines from Mills at the back: One-Two-Three and Spinning Reels, and a Ray's Tracks or similar derby horserace game.

1950s (late 50s) arcade in Upper Dauphin County, PA

1954 Phenix City, Alabama -- Russell County building and pinball machines
zoom in.

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Exploring the arcade in these Yokohama Station gun corner photographs

These photographs were posted at kanaloco.jp and I wish I had archived the page back when it wasn't locked.

I did save a screenshot of the web page:

kanaloco.jp screenshot

These are wonderful photographs, and I wish we had many more from this era.  Let's see how many of these machines can be identified!  Begin by looking at these two pictures and ask yourself how many games you can recognize.

We will proceed from the right (near us) to the left (further away), and utilizing details from both pictures.

To the right of the counter we can see a portion of one machine:

 

1959 Bingolett by Günter Wulff, Berlin (archive)

1948 Pachinko Photographs

I was able to purchase this wire-service press photo from coinop historian Larry Bieza.

1948-12-06 photograph by Richard C. Ferguson - Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo

Download high-res TIF scans of these photos at Archive.org

1948 pachinko photograph - backside

This photo was printed in numerous papers, with slight variations in the article.

1948-12-15 Chillicothe Gazette, Ohio, USA

This photo is from the same series of photographs: A child is receiving their prize.  Thank you Harold for the scan.

1948-12-06 photograph by Richard C. Ferguson - Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo

back of photograph

The machines shown are of the bara-kugi style, with mostly-uniform grids of nails, but otherwise were quite similar to the single-shot pachinko machines common in the 1950s and 1960s.

Sugiyama-san says the nameplate here read 鈴富商店 (Suzutomi Shoten).

鈴富商店 (Suzutomi Shoten)

Added 2025-03-27:

1948-12-18 Sherbrooke Daily Record

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