Original Flipper

The Original Flipper, made by Valco Automatenbouw B.V. of Bergen op Zoom, Holland, is an electro-mechanical redemption game rather than an early historical flipper machine -- despite its name, it dates to roughly the mid-1970s (reported as about 35 years old as of 2009) and was built for carnival and fairground use in the Netherlands, with manufacturing actually done in Italy.

Gameplay centers on its redemption format: players earn a token for every 300 points scored, and those tokens can be exchanged for prizes at the fair. The machine uses two flippers, two pop bumpers, and six standup targets, and is built on EM technology enhanced with added electronic sound effects -- funny sounds mark scoring milestones and the end of each game.

Around three dozen of these machines have been documented in ongoing use by the operator Van der Meer at Dutch fairs, with a couple more held in reserve, making the Original Flipper a rare surviving example of purpose-built carnival redemption pinball rather than a pioneering early flipper design.