Play Joker

Play Joker is a single-player pure mechanical (PM) pin table manufactured by Sterling Novelty Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, Ohio in April 1932. As a PM machine, it predates the electromechanical and flipper-based designs that would come to define pinball in later decades.

Little specific information is documented about Play Joker's playfield layout, rules, or notable features. As with other pin tables of this era, gameplay would have involved manually launching balls onto the playfield and scoring based on where they landed, without any electrical or flipper-based controls.

Play Joker's age and rarity make it a piece of interest for those studying Sterling Novelty's early output, which also included the two-player "Play The Joker" (1932) and "Play Poker" (1932). Little else is known about its production numbers or original packaging.