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Pinball History
The origins of pinball date back as far back as the mid 1800’s. It all started with small amusement devices called bagatelles which are the ancestors of the beloved pinball machines of today. These pre-electrical games consisted of only three pieces. The first piece was a small raised game board with a playfield that had holes into which a marble could fall and award one points based on which hole the marble fell into. Also on the playfield were metal “pins” that were strategically placed to deflect the marbles away from the holes so they would possibly fall to the bottom of the game without scoring points. The second piece, of course, was the marble itself. The third part was a miniature pool stick that the player would use to shoot the marble onto the playfield. The miniature pool stick was rendered obsolete soon after 1870, the year that Montague Redgrave, of Columbus, Ohio, was awarded U.S. Patent No. 115,357, for the world’s first spring-loaded plunger, then called a “ball shooter.” His 1871 Redgrave Parlor Bagatelle was the first to incorporate the plunger, but in the earliest models the plunger tip was not visible and the player was unable to see how far the plunger was from the ball. Later models had a visible plunger so players could determine how far to pull back the plunger. Also added to the playfield about this time were bells that the marbles could hit as they fell; this added sound as a new dimension of the games. An essential but easily overlooked component to bagatelles, and ultimately pinball machines, occurred with the invention of the coin mechanism. The coin-op industry began when in 1889 entrepreneurs Louis Glass and William S. Arnold, invented a five cent coin mechanism and attached it to Edison cylinder phonograph, thereby creating the world's first jukebox. They placed the device in the Palais Royale, a San Francisco , Saloon, and it became an instant success, earning over one thousand dollars the fist six months. The businessmen thereafter patented their "coin actuated attachment for phonographs ( U.S. Patent No. 428,750 ) on May 27, 1890, and the coin op industry had begun. The coin mechanism quickly became a standard feature of bagatelles. This allowed the devices, which originally started out as a simple parlor game, to become popular gambling devices in bars and pool halls. The games would be placed behind the counter and brought out only when a customer paid to use it. After the game was played, the proprietor would pay out winnings based on the score obtained. Coin mechanisms and the later addition of automatic pay out devices allowed the games to be kept out in the open. Glass was placed over the playfield to prevent cheating and the games could be played whenever a customer desired.
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