This game from Japan is often confused with pinball. It’s called pachinko. My friend Taylor Hunt, who owns Bodega Boise, gave it to me last year, and I finally got time to get a good look at it last weekend. And do some initial cleaning. It’s a popular game in Japan that is part arcade game and part slot machine. You purchase packets of steel balls, put them in the tray and then use the lever to shoot them around the face of the game. They trickle down and when they land in the novelties, there is a payout. Not cash, but the little balls, which can be cashed in.
Here it is after an initial cleaning. More has to be done. Many layers of dust and tobacco smoke stains.
That is an ash tray that swivels to tip out the ashes.
Probably thousands of models made over the years. The hula girl pelicans are cute on this one. If your ball lands in the beak, there is a payout.
There are no electronics involved with these vintage games, except for a connection to a battery for a couple of lights at the top. They are purely mechanical and complicated. Like mini Rube Goldberg contraptions.
In the backside view below, the blue plastic unbuttons and wow. I’ll show you in the insides later. Much more cleaning to do. And we need the steel balls, which are really ball bearings, to do more testing. We only have about 10 and literally hundreds are needed for the mechanics to work properly.
~Debbie