What You Need to Know Before You Buy a Pinball Machine

Pinball machines are the original arcade game. Before video games changed the gaming industry forever, there were the sounds of bumpers and flippers dinging across the country. The game was a staple from the Depression Era through the ‘70’s and has now become a highly sought after collectors item. It’s no surprise that many pinball fanatics today are eager to get their hands on this classic gaming machine. 

Pinball machines as we know them are a far cry from the pool tables we are familiar with but the games have a shared lineage. An off-shoot of billiards, Bagatelle, became popular with French nobility in the 18th century. The game involved using a small cue or pusher that is set on a slanted table where players would aim for holes on the playing surface. The holes themselves were guarded by pegs (starting to sound familiar?). During the early 1780s, the French soldiers brought their bagatelles with them. 

The game would continue to be popular into the next century. So much so, that in 1871 a toy manufacturer in Cincinnati named Montague Redgrave patented “The Improved Game of Bagatelle” which would replace the cue with the now iconic springed plunger. 

In 1931, Automatic