Budget

The 1936 'Budget' from Chicago Coin Machine Manufacturing Company, released March 16, 1936, is an early electro-mechanical pinball machine from the pre-flipper era of the game's history (flippers would not be introduced until 1947). With 430 confirmed units produced, it offered five balls per five-cent play across a playfield featuring 16 trap holes.

Gameplay on the Budget followed the conventions of mid-1930s pinball: players launched balls via a plunger and relied on the cabinet's tilt and the layout of trap holes to score, without any flipper control to direct the ball. Its straightforward design was typical of the affordable, mass-produced machines that helped popularize pinball as a coin-operated amusement during the Depression era.

Little is documented about the Budget's designer or artist, and even its included playing balls are of uncertain originality -- other 1936 Chicago Coin games of the period are known to have used ceramic balls or marbles rather than steel. As a relatively rare survivor from this early period, the Budget offers a useful reference point for understanding pinball design before the flipper era began.