Bolero

The Bolero, manufactured by United Manufacturing Company in December 1951, is not a conventional flipper game at all — it is a bingo machine, a class of game in which players shoot balls onto a playfield of numbered holes in hopes of lining up winning combinations on a bingo-style card displayed in the backglass. United was one of the notable producers of this style of game in the early 1950s, when bingo machines flourished alongside conventional pinball.

By flipper-game standards the playfield is sparsely appointed, featuring a single pop bumper, and the game is played by one player. Its music, singing, and dancing theme lends the machine a lively character.

While not much information is available on the machine's designer or the circumstances surrounding its creation, the Bolero remains an intriguing example of the bingo-machine branch of the coin-op family tree, and its presence in collections today offers a glimpse into a distinctive chapter of early-1950s amusement history.