Lucky Star

Lucky Star, manufactured by Buckley Manufacturing Company in September 1932, is an early counter-top payout machine -- a pure mechanical (PM) coin device rather than a standard flipper pinball -- produced during Buckley's brief four-year run of coin machines from 1932 to 1936. Its "Figure 8" playfield layout gives the ball an unusual double-loop path, a distinctive design choice for the era.

Notable features include a jackpot device mounted on the front of the cabinet and a magnetized slug-rejecting coin chute, a mechanical safeguard against the era's common problem of players using slugs instead of coins. These details point to a machine engineered as much for reliable coin handling and payout as for entertainment.

Specific details about Lucky Star's gameplay, designer, or original popularity are not documented, but its combination of an early figure-8 playfield and dedicated jackpot mechanism make it a notable artifact of the pre-flipper, payout-machine branch of early coin-operated amusements.