Lancer

The Lancer, manufactured by the Exhibit Supply Company (ESCO) of Chicago in February 1940, is an early electro-mechanical pinball machine from the flipperless era, built seven years before the flipper was invented. ESCO, active from 1932 to 1957, was one of the many Chicago coin-op firms competing in the crowded prewar pinball market.

The playfield is populated by 18 spring bumpers, the dominant scoring device of the period. As a flipperless game, the Lancer was played by launching balls and letting gravity and nudging do the rest, a style of play that rewarded a delicate touch rather than flipper skill.

The game's title and its adventure, history, jousting, and medieval theme evoke the mounted lancers of a bygone age. Little else is documented about the machine's designer or the circumstances of its creation, but the Lancer remains a representative piece of prewar pinball, offering a glimpse of the game as it existed before flippers transformed the hobby.