Hi Score

The 1946 Amusement Enterprises Mfg. Co.'s Hi Score is an early electro-mechanical (EM) pinball machine from Houston, Texas, made in the earliest years of the EM era. Notably, it is a flipperless game -- players guided the ball without the aid of flippers, which had not yet been introduced to pinball.

Little is documented about Hi Score's specific gameplay layout, designer, or artwork. It was listed in Coin Machine Digest in August 1946 with a list price of $189.50, and the only earlier references found are a pictureless teaser ad and a for-sale ad in The Billboard in February 1946. The manufacturer, founded in January 1946 as Amusement Enterprises Company, quickly became better known for its skee-ball game "Bank Ball," whose success may have overshadowed Hi Score in advertising and production.

Despite the scarcity of information about it, Hi Score remains a notable artifact from the earliest days of postwar pinball manufacturing, offering collectors and historians a window into the flipperless era that preceded pinball's modern form.