Hi-Boy

The Hi-Boy is a rare pinball machine from Mills Novelty Company, one of the pioneers of the early pinball industry. Manufactured in 1938 in Chicago, Illinois, this electro-mechanical (EM) machine is a flipperless payout game, predating the 1947 introduction of player-controlled flippers.

Details on Hi-Boy's specific gameplay mechanics are limited, but as a flipperless payout machine, play would have relied on the skill of the plunger shot and the layout of pins, targets, and scoring holes on the playfield, with payouts determined by where the ball came to rest, in the style typical of the era's one-ball and multi-ball payout games.

Little information survives about the Hi-Boy's original artwork or theme, though it likely reflected the bold, simple graphic style common to pinball machines of the 1930s. The Hi-Boy remains a relatively obscure piece in pinball history, of interest primarily to collectors of early flipperless machines.