Big Ten

The Big Ten pinball machine, manufactured by H. C. Evans & Company of Chicago in September 1935, is an early electro-mechanical game with a basketball theme. As an EM device from the mid-1930s, it long predates solid-state technology and belongs to the pioneering era of electrically assisted pinball.

Evans advertised the cabinet as 41 inches long and 22 inches wide, a compact footprint typical of games of the period. Little information survives about the game's designer or its specific playfield features beyond its sports theme.

Despite the scarcity of documentation, Big Ten's age and basketball subject matter make it an interesting artifact of pinball's earliest years, of particular interest to collectors and historians of pre-war coin-operated games.