Grown gamers replay past
They beckon you to swing a bat, rev up a sports car, or even pop a champagne cork with a Playboy bunny.
And all the while, you're trying to flip a silver metal ball through a maze of bumpers, bells and ramps to earn the bragging rights that come with the highest score.
Talk to a lover of pinball games and they'll tell you that compared with video games, a digital image on a flat screen can't hold a candle to the palpable sights, sounds and feel of a classic arcade machine.
Pinball collector Pat Gallagher of Butler said he's been in love with pinball "since I was in diapers, when I was wee little going around with my grandfather because he was in the coin-op business for a while. And of all the different coin-ops he did, I always loved pinball."
Now Gallagher, who owns about 15 pinball machines, passes that love on to others. He has some of his machines set up in his home and says when guests visit, they always want to play.
"At Christmas I have trains set up," he said. "Kids will come and look at the trains for maybe three or four minutes then say, 'Can we play the pinball games?'"
Like Gallagher, George White's collection is also fun and games. A collector for only three years, his collection has already grown to 26 machines and counting, many of which line the walls of his Whitestown Road garage, a space that has evolved into a personal pinball arcade of sorts.
In fact, one machine scrolls out the message "Welcome to George White's Pinball World" on an electronic display. The requirement, White said, is to leave at least a parking space open for his wife's vehicle.
"I purchased one at a yard sale a few years ago," White said. "A friend of mine has been collecting for years. I took it to him to repair and he showed me a few things. … Then another one popped up, and I purchased it.
"The next thing you know, the garage is getting smaller and smaller and smaller inside."
While prices vary, he noted a machine in working order might start around $1,000. Most of the machines White owns were in need of repair when he bought them.
The game of pinball evolved from a game called Bagatelle, popular in the 1800s and played with marbles and small cue sticks. A version using a spring plunger to launch the ball emerged in the 1870s.Pin games, as they were called, exploded in popularity in the 1930s when the Gottlieb Company of Chicago produced a table top game it called Baffle Ball. Pinball evolved to include bumpers, and later lights and sound with the advent of electrical power.The appeal of pinball is part challenge, part nostalgia. Although the games themselves were designed with the goal to make money for vendors, viewing a collection is like a walk through decades of American pop culture, complete with flashing lights and sound effects.White's collection ranges from quaint 1960s era mechanical machines to the ultra-slick 1990s solid state, electronic versions.The titles tell the story of a changing society, from "Genie" and "Volley" to "Buck Rogers" to "Lethal Weapon 3" and "Water World." Even Playboy Magazine's 35th anniversary was marked with the release of a pinball machine on which the voice of publisher Hugh Heffner invites players to a bunny-bedecked party in his famed mansion.White says his current favorite is "Tales from the Crypt," a special effects machine with eyeball bumpers and a descending tombstone.
The favorite machine of both Gallagher and his daughter Rebecca is "Roller Disco." The machine greets visitors in their home's entry."I played this game when it was brand new out of the box in March of 1980," Gallagher said. "We didn't get one, but I loved the artwork and I loved the music that it plays. And last year back in March, this machine just kind of fell out of the sky. I guy up in eastern New York had it. … After I got it working and took it to a couple of shows, a friend of his told me where he got it. … He found it standing as it is in a city dump.""Before some of these various entities got so tight with copyrights, a manufacturer could slide a game in with almost the name of a movie or an event," said Gallagher. "All the games now, they are all licensed. They come from a movie or something."The recently produced "Elvis" pinball machine is, like it's namesake, the current king of pinball. "I haven't played that one yet or seen it played. The playing field is just beautiful," Gallagher said.Some other newer games include "The Sopranos," "NASCAR," "Monopoly" and "Pirates of the Caribbean."Gallagher said only one company, Stern Pinball in Chicago, is still making new machines. Stiff competition from video games sent pinball's popularity into a tailspin during the late 1980s to 1990s. For collectors, though, machines are still readily available.
White said he's found machines from a variety of sources. "People have them in their basements, and some of the bigger companies sell them. I get some of their trade-ins from the larger video and vending companies. I occasionally run an ad in the paper. I picked up a few there."You just have to hit the right place at the right time," he said."You find someone who has one that's broken and they just don't want to mess with it anymore.""You don't see them in bars anymore … in restaurants anymore," Gallagher said. "The video games are big. Pinball was very high maintenance. They get dirty. All the little things in the machine need adjustment. If you don't maintain the machine, they don't make any money. People aren't going to play.""The manufacturers, they never anticipated all these machines still being around today," he said. "That was never their intent. These things were a tool and they were meant to be used up, worn out, taken to the dump and then the operator bought another one. And then collectors started to save them."While electronic technology may have signaled the end of pinball as a commercial moneymaker, it has served to bring collectors closer together, according to Gallagher, who connects with other collectors throughout the world via the World Wide Web."There's a whole network of collectors throughout the country and the world, actually. And obviously with a computer and the Internet, you can talk to people easily. Before I started using newsgroups, I never knew that there were so many people out there that collected games, and that people had so many games," he said.
"Of course with all those people come parts. You might need a part and a guy three worlds away has it. I've got lots of old parts and I've sold or given away many parts, you know something breaks and someone is desperate. You say, 'I've got that' and put it in an envelope and send it off."It's like any other hobby: cars, boats, planes, old stamps — the Internet just brings people together, especially with the newsgroups. There's a newsgroup for everything and you can post a question and get an answer in minutes."There are also collector shows held throughout the country, Gallagher said. The largest is the annual Pinball Expo, set for Oct. 24 to 28 in Chicago.In Pennsylvania, the White Rose Gameroom Show will be Oct. 12 and 13 in York. The Professional Amateur Pinball Association holds a world championship each year in Carnegie."You meet a lot of good people," Gallagher said.In addition to the challenge of playing the games, both men like the challenge of repairing what would be an otherwise discarded machine.White says he loves "getting one that's broke and getting it to work again. Bringing it back to life."Gallagher agrees. "I enjoy fixing them as much as playing them," he said.White said he likes to collect machines that "are unique and do different things. The more challenging, the better."Gallagher focuses his collection on older games that were manufactured before solid-state circuit boards replaced electrical relays and switches during the late 1970s.
Still, both men agree the hours of repair are worth the fun at the end.White said he and his 21-year-old son, David, have an ongoing, friendly competition when the college student is home from Penn State."It's a battle," White joked of the father-son contest, "but you'll see the initials D-A-D in first place of almost all of them."He also said his daughter Rebecca likes playing the pinball machines and he hopes to pass that interest on to infant grandson Espn when he's old enough to press the buttons."It's an interesting hobby," White said. "People my age, when they went to bars when they were 21, about 30 years ago, that's all they had — pinball machines. Now everything's electronic. But you just can't beat a good pinball machine."Gallagher offers a warning to any would-be pinball collector: "Pinball machines are like rabbits. You can never have just one. You get one and it's like, 'That's fun, but that one over there looks nice too.'"
