Lucky Strike

Lucky Strike, manufactured by the Pace Manufacturing Company of Chicago in February 1932, is a pure mechanical counter game from the opening months of the coin-operated pinball boom. Pace's pinball operation was brief, spanning only 1932 to 1933, which makes this tabletop game a small time capsule from the industry's very first chapter, years before electricity, bumpers, or flippers entered the picture.

As a counter game, Lucky Strike was built to sit on a store or tavern counter rather than stand on the floor. Its two-tone oak cabinet measures 24 inches long, 16 inches wide, and 9 inches tall, rising to 42 inches when placed on its legs, and it was topped with a metal marquee. Details of its playfield and rules are not recorded in the available documentation.

At least one surviving example illustrates how operators modified these games over the years: it sits on an ornate wooden stand not made by Pace, both pieces painted off-white, with a flat table added where the marquee once stood. Such field alterations are part of the archaeology of early coin-op, and they make original, unmodified examples all the more interesting to historians.