Tout

The Tout, manufactured by Pacific Amusement Manufacturing Company (PAMCO) in December 1936, is a one-ball payout machine with a horse-racing theme. As a payout machine of its era, it reflects the early experimentation with electro-mechanical components (including a check separator and 'Electropak') that characterized pinball's coin-op gambling adjacent machines of the mid-1930s.

Gameplay on the Tout is straightforward: players insert 5 cents to play a single ball. The game's payout mechanism was designed with a lock that only allowed merchants or authorized personnel access to the contents of the payout drawer, likely implemented to prevent tampering or theft. Some sources indicate the machine also dispensed tickets, based on a ticket-vending escutcheon visible near the coin slide, though period advertisements do not explicitly confirm this.

The Tout's design and theme are reflective of its era, and its compact dimensions (advertised as 50 inches long by 24 inches wide) would have made it a staple in local arcades and bars, providing entertainment for patrons during the Great Depression. While detailed information about the machine is scarce, its survival as a relatively rare example from this period underscores its importance to pinball enthusiasts and historians.