A-B-C Bowler

The A-B-C Bowler, manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Company in August 1941, is a charming artifact from pinball's pre-flipper era. Designed by Harry Mabs - who would go on to change the game forever by introducing the flipper on 1947's Humpty Dumpty - this flipperless machine relies on plunger skill and careful nudging rather than flipper control.

The playfield features sixteen scoring bumpers, and hitting the numbered bumpers lights the corresponding pins on the backglass, tying the bowling theme directly into the scoring. Roy Parker, one of the most prolific artists of pinball's golden age, provided the artwork.

As a single-player game from the final months before America's entry into World War II halted game production, the A-B-C Bowler offers a fascinating glimpse into the early days of the industry, and its bowling-on-a-backglass conceit remains a clever piece of design more than eight decades later.