Skill Score

The 1956 Skill Score by Exhibit Supply Company (ESCO) is a cue game — not a pinball machine — from a manufacturer that produced coin-operated amusements in Chicago from 1932 to 1957. It showcases the variety of games ESCO produced during the post-war era beyond traditional pinball.

Skill Score supports 2 or 4 players, allowing head-to-head or team-style competition using a cue rather than flippers or a plunger, in the tradition of billiards-style coin-op games of the period. The earliest known trade reference is a March 1956 Billboard column identifying it as a new release.

ESCO had previously used the same name on an earlier, unrelated 1936 pinball machine, 'Skill Score,' which can cause confusion between the two games. As a cue game rather than a flipper pinball, this 1956 Skill Score represents a different, less common category of coin-op amusement from the mid-1950s.