Bridgeball (short cabinet bowl model)

The Bridgeball, produced by Culp Products Company of Elkhart, Indiana, in 1950, is a Flipperless, pure mechanical (PM) pinball machine adapted from Culp's earlier coinless home game, 'Panbridge'. It is also a later, bowl-shaped follow-up to Culp's own 1940 long-cabinet 'Bridgeball'. Period reporting suggests the game had a fitful production history, being announced for the coin-machine trade in 1950 and then reappearing, seemingly relaunched, in 1955.

One of the most striking aspects of Bridgeball is its gameplay, which involves launching five balls into play for a 5-cent play. Players must then navigate each ball across the metal, bowl-shaped playfield, trying to get them to fall into one of six numbered holes before rolling into a gutter. This straightforward yet challenging design makes Bridgeball unique among early pinball machines, offering a glimpse into the simplicity and charm of the game's earliest days.

Notably, little is known about the designer or any specific theme behind Bridgeball. Measuring 30 inches long, 19 1/2 inches wide, and 31 inches high, with a weight of 55 pounds, this compact machine would have been a modest addition to arcades and amusement locations of the early 1950s. Despite the uncertainty surrounding its production run, Bridgeball remains an interesting piece of pinball history, illustrating how manufacturers kept experimenting with mechanical novelty games even as electromechanical pinball was becoming dominant.