ERBU-BALL

ERBU-BALL, made by Erich Büttner (trading as ERBÜ) of Leipzig, Germany in 1932, is a Pure Mechanical single-player game with a horse-racing theme. Its playfield features ten snap traps and a single ball diverter shaped like an eight-point asterisk in the upper playfield, along with metal guide rails flanking each trap and a wood-covered totalizer in the lower playfield.

The game's artwork depicts two jockeys riding horses — one shown with a swastika flag and the other with the national flag of Germany — a stark reflection of the political context in Germany in the early 1930s. IPDB notes the totalizer closely resembles the one used on Gottlieb's 1933 'Big Broadcast (Junior)', though it carries no manufacturer markings of its own.

The cabinet shows bolt holes at its corners, suggesting legs could be attached, and the game used a single coin slot with a single coin return. ERBU-BALL was followed by later ERBÜ releases of the same name in 1933 and 1934. As a European mechanical pin game from this early period, it offers a window into pinball's development outside the United States, though claims about its exact place in that history cannot be confirmed from available documentation.