Click

Click, manufactured by J. H. Keeney and Company of Chicago in August 1947, is a flipperless electro-mechanical game from the final months before flippers swept the industry -- Keeney's own first flipper game, 'Cover Girl', would follow in December 1947. Offering five balls for five cents, Click could be operated for novelty play or free game (replay) awards.

The playfield carries eleven passive bumpers and five kick-out holes, and a knock-off button under the front edge of the cabinet let the location reset the Free Game register to zero after paying out -- a telling detail about how these games were actually operated. Its theme is a sunny mix of beaches, swimming, modeling, and photography, squarely in the pin-up tradition of the era.

Click also illustrates a fascinating transitional moment in pinball history: operators of the period soon began retrofitting flippers onto flipperless games like this one, and those aftermarket flippers often ended up in unusual places on the playfield. As such, Click is a snapshot of the industry at the very moment it was about to change forever.