Lightning (36, First Style)

Lightning (36, First Style), released by Exhibit Supply Company (ESCO) of Chicago in April 1934, was ESCO's first pin table and the company's first electro-mechanical (EM) game. It was designed by Harry Williams and originally intended to be called "Contact," built under contract with Pacific Amusement Company (PAMCO) to help meet demand for PAMCO's popular game of the same name. A royalty dispute between the two manufacturers led Williams to rename the Exhibit version "Lightning" instead.

As a single-player, pre-flipper machine, Lightning relies on the ball's own momentum and the tilt of the cabinet rather than player-controlled flippers — a design typical of pinball in 1934, well over a decade before flippers were introduced. The cabinet was advertised at 36 inches long and 18 inches wide, and its playfield layout was initially identical to Contact's, which created marketing confusion; Williams later redesigned the game with a new red upper playfield and different cabinet, released as the 1934 "Lightning (38, New Style)."

Because Lightning shares its origins so closely with Contact, some historians note the possibility that early production units made by Exhibit may have still carried the "Contact" name before the switch, which could account for design variations seen in games attributed to PAMCO. This tangled history makes Lightning (36, First Style) a notable case study in pinball's earliest manufacturing rivalries.