Silver Cup

The Silver Cup, manufactured by Genco Manufacturing Company in March 1936, is an electro-mechanical payout machine from the earliest era of coin-operated pinball. As a single-player payout game, it predates the introduction of flippers, which would not appear in pinball until 1947, so its play centered on the ball's own path and skillful plunging rather than direct player control of the ball via flippers.

Little detailed information survives about Silver Cup's specific rules, artwork, or designer, which is typical for machines of this vintage. Genco was one of several Chicago manufacturers producing payout and pin games in the mid-1930s, a period when the industry was still years away from the electromechanical scoring and flipper-driven gameplay that would come to define pinball.

As a relic from the pre-war, pre-flipper era, the Silver Cup remains a piece of pinball history that predates most of what modern players would recognize as pinball, offering a glimpse into the earliest days of the coin-operated amusement industry.