American Beauty (Improved)

American Beauty (Improved) is an electro-mechanical pinball machine from March 1934, manufactured by G.B. Daval Company Inc. of Chicago, Illinois, and designed by Ralph Fletcher. It continued production of Gee Bee Manufacturing Company's 1934 'American Beauty' after Gee-Bee changed its name to G.B. Daval Company on March 6, 1934, an intermediate step before Daval Manufacturing Company took over the entire operation on August 15, 1934.

The Encyclopedia of Pinball refers to this version as "improved" without fully explaining what changed. Company co-founder Eddie Ginsburg is quoted describing problems with the original game, including balls hitting the counter and bending metal, though the specific fixes remain undocumented. Contemporary advertisements describe a Ball-O-Meter in the lower playfield and a catapult mechanism (a ball kicker into a Mystery Score hole) in the upper playfield, though some ads inconsistently show a playfield without an evident catapult, featuring instead three decorative aluminum vases around the American Beauty rose with no Ball-O-Meter.

The cabinet was advertised at 36 inches long by 16 1/2 inches wide. This brief, transitional production run and its unresolved design questions make American Beauty (Improved) a genuinely rare and puzzling entry in early pinball history.