Brokers Tip

Brokers Tip, a pure mechanical (PM) pinball machine from June 1933, is a significant piece of early pinball history. Produced by D. Gottlieb & Company, a prominent manufacturer of the era, this countertop-era game showcases the company's early efforts to create engaging and challenging gameplay, with a topical Wall Street theme arriving in the depths of the Great Depression.

The machine features a "Figure 8" playfield layout, 10 snap traps, and a horseshoe diverter. Its automatic score tally is particularly clever: just above the instructions sits a horizontal row of ten score tally indicators, each connected by a rod to a snap trap. When a ball lands in a snap trap, the corresponding indicator flips to show the point score, letting the player simply add up the flipped indicators at the end of the game instead of reading values off the playfield.

Brokers Tip also appears to be the first pinball machine with a tilt mechanism of the ball-resting-on-a-post type, mounted in a cup within the player's view. If the ball was shaken off the post during play, the score was considered invalid. Originally referred to as a "stool pigeon", it is identified on this game as the "Anti-Tilting Device" (an earlier tilt mechanism of a different sort appears on K & F Specialty Company's 1933 'Whirls Fair'). Housed in an ebony black cabinet measuring 36 by 18 inches, Brokers Tip is a fascinating snapshot of pinball's mechanical infancy.