Gold Rush

Gold Rush, manufactured by Rock-ola Manufacturing Corporation of Chicago in April 1935, is an early electromechanical (EM) machine from the formative years of coin-operated amusements. Designed by company founder David Rockola himself, with artwork by George Molentin, it dates from Rock-ola's brief 1932-1938 run as a pinball manufacturer before the company became famous for jukeboxes.

Gold Rush is a flipperless, one-ball payout machine: the player received a single ball per play, and winning results paid out directly, placing it in the gambling-style category that dominated much of the mid-1930s trade. The battery-operated game is compact by later standards, measuring 18 inches wide, 45 inches long, and 15 inches high.

As an early electromechanical payout game bearing David Rockola's own design credit, Gold Rush stands as a small but genuine artifact of pinball's formative era, when manufacturers were still working out what a coin-operated ball game could be.