Acey Ducy

The Auto-Bell Novelty Company's Acey Ducy (May 1960) is an unusual entry in pinball history: a pure mechanical (PM) table-top/counter game built around two separate playfields housed in a single compact cabinet. Each playfield has its own coin slide, ball lift, and ball shooter, allowing two players to compete side by side on what is advertised as a 2-player game.

The cabinet is small by pinball standards — about 16 inches long, 22 inches wide, and 7 inches high — and rubber suction cups on the bottom let it be affixed securely to a table or countertop, making it well suited to bars, drugstores, and other counter-service locations rather than dedicated arcade floor space. Play consists of five balls per player, with players competing to score more with their allotted balls than their opponent.

As a pure mechanical game from 1960, Acey Ducy came well after electro-mechanical pinball had become the industry standard, making its old-school mechanical design and dual-playfield layout something of a throwback for its time. Little is documented about who designed it, but its playing-card theme and novel twin-playfield format make it a distinctive collectible from Auto-Bell's counter-game lineup.