Hoop-Er-Doo

Hoop-Er-Doo, manufactured by Pierce Tool and Manufacturing Company of Chicago in March 1932, dates from the very beginning of the coin-operated pin game boom. As a single-player, pure mechanical machine built without electricity, it is representative of the industry's earliest days, when countless small manufacturers rushed simple ball games to market.

Little is documented about Hoop-Er-Doo's specific features. Like other pure mechanical games of 1932, it would have been a flipperless game in which the player launched balls onto a playfield and gravity and chance did the rest, decades before flippers were introduced in 1947.

No information survives about the machine's artwork, theme, or designer, underscoring how little is known about many of these earliest games. Nonetheless, its existence as one of the earliest mechanical pin games makes it a fascinating artifact for collectors and historians alike.