Baby Grand (Pin Game)

The Baby Grand (Pin Game), manufactured by the A. M. Walzer Company of St. Paul, Minnesota in May 1932, is an early example of a table-top/counter pinball game from the dawn of the coin-operated pinball era — a period when compact, low-cost counter games were spreading rapidly through drugstores, bars, and other small retail locations.

A notable aspect of the Baby Grand is its affordability: it offered 10 balls of play for a nickel, an appealing value during the Great Depression when operators needed to keep entertainment cheap. Its playfield features 16 trap holes, giving players a range of scoring targets and adding an element of chance and unpredictability that was typical of pin games from this period.

The company also produced a companion title, Baby Grand (Roulette), which used a different, pin-free playfield layout in the same general format. Little specific information survives about the Baby Grand's designer or artwork, which is common for machines from this very early period of pinball history, but its low-cost, high-ball-count format and companion release make it an interesting example of Depression-era counter game design.