Beano

Beano, produced by Exhibit Supply Company (ESCO) of Chicago in February 1936, is a pin table from the busy heart of pinball's first commercial boom. ESCO, active in coin-operated amusements from 1932 to 1957, was one of the many Chicago factories churning out pin games in the mid-1930s, and Beano is a representative example of the era's countertop-style trap-hole games.

Each play gave the customer 10 balls to shoot into a field of 16 trap holes, with scoring determined by where the balls came to rest. The cabinet measures 40 inches long by 22 inches wide, a compact footprint typical of pin tables of the day. The name "Beano" echoes the bingo-style game of chance popular at carnivals in the 1930s, fitting the number-matching flavor of trap-hole play.

As a surviving mid-1930s pin table, Beano offers a look at the simple, pre-flipper gameplay that entertained players for a nickel more than eighty years ago, and at the kind of bread-and-butter product that kept manufacturers like ESCO thriving through the Depression.