Diamond Mine

Diamond Mine, manufactured by the Buckley Manufacturing Company of Chicago in 1935, is a rare early example of a one-ball payout pinball machine — rather than simply racking up a score, players won direct payouts based on where the ball landed. It's notable for being dry-cell battery operated, a "pre-electric" design that predates reliance on standard wall power, typical of many coin-operated machines of the early 1930s.

Diamond Mine is a one-ball game, though its ball-serve mechanism uses two balls internally, and a contemporary advertisement described the top three playfield holes as "concave saucer pockets." There has been unconfirmed speculation that the game could be converted between one-ball and five-ball play, though a detailed examination of at least one surviving example has not supported this.

As an early payout machine from a short-lived manufacturer (Buckley operated only from 1932 to 1936), Diamond Mine offers a window into the gambling-oriented side of pre-war pinball, more than a decade before flipper-based skill games would come to define the medium.