Marines At Play (1st Edition)

Marines At Play (1st Edition) is a rare wartime-themed pinball machine from August 1944, produced by Westerhaus Amusement Company of Cheviot, Ohio. This electro-mechanical, flipperless game was a conversion of Bally's 1941 'Flicker,' released amid a wave of wartime military-themed conversions.

Gameplay centers on 14 passive bumpers and a single trap hole, reflecting the flipperless, skill-shot style of play common before the flipper's introduction in 1947. Westerhaus advertised a 'revised playfield' for this game later in 1944, though the specifics of that revision were not detailed, and a second production run (the 2nd Edition) followed in 1945.

The game's title and imagery reflect the patriotic Marine Corps theme popular in wartime America. While the manufacturer's own advertisements referred to the game simply as 'Marines,' distributors and the backglass itself used the longer name 'Marines At Play.' No information is available on the designer, but the machine remains a notable artifact of wartime pinball conversions.