Sharp's Shooter - Baseball Bagatelle

The Sharp, manufactured by The Sharp-Boyd Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a small pure mechanical (PM) bagatelle with a baseball theme. Its exact year of production is uncertain -- it may correspond to either the 1932 'Sharp's Shooter' or the 1933 'Improved Sharp's Shooter' listed in the Encyclopedia of Pinball Vol. 1. The ball shooter cover references patent #1890950, filed by Charles L. Sharp in March 1932 and granted in December 1932 for a 'game board' combining a ball shooter and runway.

As a simple bagatelle, gameplay involved using a plunger with a 1-inch throw to launch the ball onto a compact playfield measuring just 22 1/2 by 12 1/2 inches, aiming for baseball-themed scoring targets -- a far simpler design than the flipper games that would come decades later.

Little else is documented about Sharp's specific design or original packaging; even the stand pictured with surviving examples may not be original to the game. It remains a niche but historically interesting piece connecting early 20th-century bagatelle games to baseball-themed pinball's later development.