Exposition

Exposition, manufactured by the Chicago Coin Machine Manufacturing Company and released on July 30, 1938, is a rare flipperless electro-mechanical pinball machine from the prewar era, with a confirmed production run of just 147 units. Model 52 in Chicago Coin's line, it offered players five balls for five cents on a playfield studded with ten spring bumpers, a time clock, and a distinctive rubbered red post at the center of the playfield that does not spin.

The machine's most fascinating aspect is its scoring system. A slowly rotating motor under the playfield toggles the rollovers between 200 and 1,000 points, with playfield lamps lighting to signal the player when the higher value is active. When a 1,000-point score is earned, a solenoid in the backbox fires a ball around a hidden track lined with five 200-point rollovers - a clever captive-ball unit, invisible to the player, that simulates a 5-pulse score motor by delivering five switch closures from a single playfield switch closure. The game has no sound at all.

Surviving examples add their own puzzles: two known machines owned by the same collector carry cabinet art that matches neither the manufacturer's Billboard advertisement for this game nor the ad for Chicago Coin's 1938 'Peppy' - though one cabinet does match a game pictured for Peppy. Mechanical intricacies and mysteries like these make Exposition a fascinating specimen for pinball historians.