Haf-Shot

Haf-Shot is a purely mechanical, single-player countertop game produced by Silver-Marshall, Incorporated of Chicago in August 1932. Dating from the very first years of the pinball boom that followed 1931's 'Baffle Ball' and 'Ballyhoo', it belongs to the earliest generation of coin-operated marble games, built entirely without electricity.

As a table top/counter game, Haf-Shot was designed to sit on a store or tavern counter rather than stand on legs — a common format in the Depression-era trade, when small, inexpensive games could earn pennies at any retail location. Play in games of this type revolved around the plunger shot and the fixed layout of the board, with no flippers or powered mechanisms of any kind.

Silver-Marshall's pinball activity appears limited to 1932, and little else is documented about Haf-Shot's theme or design, which only adds to its intrigue as an artifact of pinball's chaotic, crowded first years.