Buttons

"Buttons" is a flipperless electro-mechanical game produced in 1937 by Daval Manufacturing Co., a Chicago pinball maker active from 1934 to 1939. Offering five balls for five cents, it is a modest single-player game from the busy pre-war period of the industry.

The game's namesake feature is its array of fifteen passive bumpers, which look more like buttons: the ball can bump against them but not roll over them. These are joined by six non-electrical spring bumpers that bounce balls away on contact. Together they define a playfield built entirely around rebound action, years before powered pop bumpers or flippers existed.

"Buttons" is also notably scarce. The example documented at IPDB is the only one its historians have seen, and no contemporaneous picture advertisements have been found. That surviving game shows signs of after-factory work - a repainted playfield trim, legs, and coin door, plus replaced wiring - leaving open questions about the machine's original appearance that only the discovery of another example could answer.