Dale Gun Patrol

Dale Gun Patrol is an electro-mechanical gun game manufactured by Exhibit Supply Company (ESCO) of Chicago in March 1951. Rather than a flipper pinball, it is a single-player shooting game built around a combat/military theme, reflecting the wartime and Cold War-era sentiment popular in coin-operated amusements of the early 1950s.

Players aim and fire at targets rather than controlling flippers or a flailing striker, in keeping with ESCO's line of gun games from this period. A distinctive feature is a ticket slot on the front of the cabinet, which vends tickets to the player -- the game's coin door configuration also evolved over its production, starting with a single coin slot for 5- or 10-cent play before later versions added 3-slot doors for 5-10-25 cent play.

Little is documented about the specific designer or artwork of Dale Gun Patrol, and production numbers are unknown, but its military theme and unusual ticket-vending mechanism make it a notable piece of early-1950s gun-game history for collectors of coin-operated amusements.